
I AjS 



DEBATERS- HANDBOOK SERIES 



COMPULSORY ARBITRATION AND 

COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION OF 

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



Debaters' Handbook Series 

American Merchant Marine $1.50 
Capital Punishment (3d ed. rev. and 

enl.) 
Central Bank of the United States 
Child Labor (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
City Manager Plan 

Compulsory Arbitration of Industrial 
Disputes (4th ed. rev. and enl.) 
^ $2.25 

Compulsory Insurance 
Conservation of Natural Resources 
Debaters' Manual (3d ed. enl.) 
Direct Primaries (4th ed. rev. and enl.) 
Election of U. S. Senators (2d ed.) 
Employment of Women (2d ed.) 
Federal Control of Interstate Corpora- 
tions (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Free Trade vs. Protection 
Government Ownership of Railroads 

Vol. II. $1.50 
Government Ownership of Telegraph 

and Telephone 
Income Tax (3d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Initiative and Referendum (3d ed. rev.) 
Minimum Wage 
Mothers' Pensions 
Municipal Ownership (3d ed.) $1.50 
National Defense. Vol. II 
National Defense Vol. III. $1.80 
Open versus Closed Shop (2d ed.) 
Parcels Post (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Prohibition (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Recall (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Reciprocity 

Single Tax (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
Trade Unions (2d ed. enl.) 
Unemployment 
World Peace (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 



Other titles in preparation 

Each volume, unless otherwise noted, 

$1.25 net 



Debaters' Handbook Series 
SELECTED ARTICLES 

ON THE 

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION AND 

COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION OF 

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



COMPILED BY 

LAMAR T: BEMAN, A. M., LL B. 

ATTORNEY AT LAW, CLEVELAND, OHIO 



FOURTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED 



THE H. W. V^ILSON COMPANY 

NEW YORK 

1920 



r^vv. 






^11 5^^' 



,135 



,c)SO 



Published in 1911 

Second Edition, January, 1915 

Third Edition, August, 1917 

Pburth Edition. September, 1920 



EXPLANATORY NOTE 

This volume is compiled according to the general plan of the 
Debaters' Handbook series, but it differs from other numbers 
of the series in that it covers two questions. It is the plan of 
the series to have a separate volume for each question for de- 
bate. In this case, however, the two questions are closely relat- " 
ed, and much of the literature deals with both, so that it is 
impracticable to present them in separate volumes and yet im- 
possible to combine them into one question. Compulsory Ar- 
bitration as adopted in Kansas and New Zealand is a very dif- 
ferent thing from Compulsory Investigation as used in Colorado 
and Canada. Both are of such general interest and so often dis- 
cussed and debated that there has been constant demand for a 
new edition of this volume. 

Compulsory Arbitration and Compulsory Investigation are 
terms that are frequently confused, the former term often being 
used Avhen the latter is meant. Compulsory Arbitration means 
a law commanding that differences between employer and em- 
ploye, which cannot be settled by mutual agreement, be sub- 
mitted to arbitration, that both parties must comply with the 
award, and that there may be no cessation of -industry by strike 
or lockout. Compulsory Investigation on the other hand means 
enforced postponement of a strike or lockout until notice has 
been given and time allowed for an investigation, the findings of 
which are to be made public. The former prohibits strikes and 
lockouts, the latter delays them so as to prevent hasty action on 
the part of either party and to permit an official investigation, 
the findings of which shall inform the public as to the nature 
and merits of the controversy. 

This volume contains a full general bibliography revised to 
the date of this issue, but not separated into affirmative and 
negative references, because many articles either present both 
sides of one question, or take up both questions. It also con- 
tains briefs and reprints of the best material on both sides of 
each question. 

June 30, 1920. Lamar T. Beman 



i 



CONTENTS 

Explanatory Note y 

Briefs 

Compulsory Arbitration xi 

Compulsory Investigation xxix 

Bibliography 

Bibliographies and Briefs xxxiii 

Books and Pamphlets xxxiv 

Periodicals i. .1 xxxix 

Government Publications lix 

Industrial Warfare Ixv 

Introduction 

PART I. INDUSTRIAL WARFARE 

Strikes 13 

War on the People Outlook 19 

Thompson, Slason. Violence in Labor Conflicts 

, Outlook 21 

Dyn&mite Outrages 2^ 

The Boycott 33 

Stone, Peter. Intimidation and Deportation 34 

Strike Breaking 35 

The Pinkerton Agency and Labor Struggles "i"] 

Thomas, Chas. S. The Right To Strike 

Congressional Record 39 

Mr. Gomper's Reply Congressional Record 41 

What Strikes Have Cost The Miners 

Literary Digest 45 

The Strike Balance Sheet New York Times 46 



Tiii CONTENTS 

Expensive Idleness Cleveland Plain Dealer 48 

Babson, Roger W. What These Strikes Cost You in 

Money American Magazine 49 

^ Where Do The People Come In Independent 54 

Brief Excerpts 55 

PART II. GENERAL DISCUSSION 

Anti-Strike Legislation in Various Countries 69 

The Kansas Industrial Court Bill Lawr & Labor "]() 

The Colorado Industrial Commission 

Monthly Labor Revievir 80 

Beebee, George. The Australian System of Dealing vv^ith 

Labor Disputes Survey 82 

PART III. COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 

Affirmative Discussion 

Parsons, Frank. Compulsory Arbitration Arena 91 

Address of William Allen White 

Kansas Legislature, January, 1920 104 

The Cummins Bill 105 

Underwood, Oscar W. Compulsory Arbitration in Rail- 
road Labor Disputes 115 

Allen, Henry J. Liberty and Law in Kansas 

Review of Reviews 1 28 

Governor Allen's Discovery Buffalo Commercial 139 

Brief Excerpts 141 

Negative Discussion 

Gompers, Samuel. Compulsory Arbitration in the 

Railroad Engineers' Award 

American Fedcrationist 149 

Stanley, A. Owsley. Railroad Control 165 

Fitcli, John A. Industrial Peace by Law Survey 176 

Russell, Charles Edward. Compulsory Arbitration, the 

Next Battle Prize Reconstruction 183 



CONTENTS he 

Compulsion Does Not Insure Peace 

Cleveland Plain Dealer 191 

Canfield, F. C. The Anti-Strike Bill Iowa Unionist 193 

Brief Excerpts 197 

PART IV. COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION 

Affirmative Discussion 

Compulsory Investigation Public ao9 

President Wilson Recommends Compulsory Investiga- 
tion 210 

President Wilson "Earnestly Renews" His Recommen- 
dation ; 213 

Dunn, Samuel O. Government Prevention of Railroad 
Strikes Railway Age Gazette 214 

Clark, Victor S. The Canadian Industrial Disputes Act 
Academy of Political Science. Proceedings 228 

Statement of Hon. G. D. Robertson 236 

Lee, Elisha. Trial By Jury Independent 238 

Bryan, William J. An Industrial Peace Plan 

Commoner 243 

Brief Excerpts 248 

Negative Discussion 

Statement of Samuel Gompers 253 

Opinion of the American Federation of Labor 260 

Statement of A. B. Garrettson 264 

Selekman, Ben M. Nine Years of the Canadian Act 

Survey 267 

D'Connell, James. The Canadian Disputes Act... Survey 286 
Garrettson, Austin B. The Right to Strike 

• • ./ Independent 289 

Carter, W. S. The Objections of Organized Labor to 

Compulsory Arbitration 

Academy of Political Science, Proceedings 294 

Brief excerpts 299 



BRIEFS 
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 

Resolved^ That Capital and Labor should be compelled to 
settle their disputes in legally established courts of arbitration. 

Affirmative 
Introduction. 

A. The question presupposes the existence of labor dis- 
putes. 
R The Affirmative merely proposes that these disputes be 
settled by peaceful adjudication in courts of law, as 
all other disputes are now settled. 

C. We must not lose sight of the fact that in addition to 

the two antagonists in every labor dispute there is 
always a great third party, the general public, inno- 
cent of any blame but injured by every strike. 

D. The Affirmative does not claim that compulsory indus- 

trial arbitration will put an absolute end to all phases 
of industrial warfare, but we do claim that it will 
reduce labor disturbances to a minimum, as it has 
done in New Zealand and in Kansas. 

I. The existing conditions in our industrial system demand a 
remedy. 
A. There are great evils connected with industrial war- 
fare. 

I. Mobs, riots and other disturbances of the peace. 
(McClures 23 : 43. Report of the Industrial Com- 
mission 19 : 877) . 

(a) The Pullman Gar strike 1894. 

(b) The Boston Police strike 1919 (Current 
History 11 : 54). 

(c) The Anthracite Coal strike 1902. 

(d) Various street car strikes. 

(e) Homestead strike 1892. 



BRIEFS 

Murder, maiming, and assault (Outlook 78:969 
and 98: 12). 
Destruction of property, sabotage. 

(a) The systematic dynamiting program (Out- 
look 98:915. McClures 38:347. Harper 
Encyclopaedia of American History.) 

(b) The railroad strike of 1877. 

(c) Coal strike 1894. 

(d) Denver street car strike of 1920. 
Infringement and denial of established rigiits. 

(a) Interference with free speech. 

(b) Denial of peaceful assembly (Survey 
43:58). 

(c) Deportation. 

(d) Importation of strike breakers and slug- 
gers. 

(e) Intimidation by pickets and private detec- 
tives. 

Boj'cotts, lasting long after the strike is over. 
(See publications of the League for Industrial 
Rights, formerly the American Anti-Boycott 
Association, 135 Broadway, New York City, and 
Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series 34, 
No. I.) 

(a) Buck's Stove and Range Co. of St. Louis. 
(Bulletin U.S. Bureau of Labor 18:124). 

(b) The Danbury Hatters' Case. (Outlook 
110:612. Everybody's 33: 121) 

(c) Duplex Printing Press Co. (Law and 
Labor 2 : 26 F. '20) . 

(d) Coronado Coal Co. (Law and Labor i : 5-8 
Je. '19.) 

Blacklisting. (Report of Industrial Commission 

19:890). 

(a) Western Union Telegraph Co. (Bulletin 

U. S. Bureau of Labor 9 : 202 Ja. '04) 
Stoppages and "Striking on the Job". 
Class hatred engendered. 

Breakdown of respect for law and order and the 
courts. 



BRIEFS xiii 

(a) Some labor leaders declare they will not 
obey a compulsory arbitration or investiga- 
tion law. 

(x) (See Law and Labor i : 23 D. '19) 
(y) (See Proceedings of the Academy of 

Political Science 7:31 Ja. '17) 
(z) Several sent to jail in Kansas 1920. 

(b) The injunctions of the courts are violated. 

(c) Disrespect for property rights. 

B. Both parties are injured. 

1. Labor by loss of wages. (Report Industrial 

Commission 17:667. Report Anthracite Coal 
Commission. Literary Digest 42 : 295. American 
Magazine 89 : 100) 

2. Employers, by stoppage of production, destruc- 
tion of propertj', and uncertainties in business. 

3. Settlement by force does not secure justice. 

C. The innocent third party, the general public, is always 

injured and often suffers more than either antagonist. 
(Harper's Magazine 131 : 675. American Magazine 
89:9. Outlook 94: 517, 114:147, and 123:223) 

1. By interruption of service. 

(a) Every street car strike causes great incon- 
venience and expense. 

(b) Strikes of telephone operators have disor- 
ganized the business of several cities. 

(c) Railroad strikes have closed factories for 
lack of fuel and raw material and have 
made food very scarce in the great cities. 

(d) Drug clerks' strike. 

(e) Elevator operators' strikes inconvenienced 
thousands in New York City, 1920. 

(f) New York printers strike, 1919, prevented 
publication of magazines and books. 

2. By causing a shortage in the necessities of life. 

(a) The Coal strike 1919 caused untold suffer- 
ing. (Independent 101:385). 

(b) The Milk drivers strike in New York. 
(Independent 88: 139). 

(c) The Railroad strikes of 1894 and 1920. 



BRIEFS 

(d) A concerted determined railroad strike 
would mean that thousands, perhaps mil- 
lions, of people in the cities would die of 
starvation. 

3. By throwing men out of work. 

(a) The non-strikers at the plant directly con- 
cerned. (McClures 20: 325). 

(b) Employes in allied or dependent industries, 
(x) Shops have been closed because of 

lack of fuel. (Coal strike 1919) 
(y) Shops and factories have been closed 
or have curtailed their work because of 
inability to get raw material. (Railway 
Switchmens strike 1920) 

4. By general depression of business. 

5. By decreased production resulting in increased 

prices. 

(a) An attempt is always made to make up 
losses. 

(b) Every coal strike has been followed by an 
increase in the price of coal. 

(c) Milk drivers strikes have been followed by 
higher prices. 

6. By destruction of property, all of which is a 

direct loss to society. 

(a) There is usually a deliberate destruction of 
the employers property, called sabotage. 

(b) There is often great destruction by the 
rowdy element of the community. 

(x) Boston Police strike. 

(c) Sudden strikes and deliberate neglect, as in 
letting fires go out, boilers run dry, or pipes 
freeze, often cause a considerable loss. 

(d) Strikes often cause a great loss in perish- 
able goods. 

(e) A sort of "gorilla warfare" sometimes 
continues after a strike is over. 

(x) In the cases known as "striking on 

the job." 
(y) The dynamiting cases in the structural 

iron industrv. 



BRIEFS XV 

D. The cost to societj'^ of industrial warfare is enormous. 

1. The Seventeenth Annual report of the U. S. 

Commissioner of Labor p. 24 places the loss 
caused by strikes and lockouts from 1881 to 1900 
at $468,968,581. 

2. The Statement issued by the U. S. Shipping 
Board on Dec. 6, 1919, says that the strikes in the 
first eleven months of that year cost the Board 
$37,000,000. This does not include the losses to 
strikers, to allied industries, and to society. 

3. The New York Times (editorial) April 18, 1920 

says "In 1919 an incomplete list tabulated losses 
of wages by strikes of $723,478,300, and of indus- 
trial losses, not labor's, of $1,266,357,450. This 
is about a hundred dollars for each family in the 
United States in one j^ear. 

E. Present methods do not afford the desired remedy. 

1. Industrial warfare has steadily grown more ex- 

tensive and more bitter. 

(a) From 1881 to 1905 there were 38,303 strikes 
and lockouts in the United States, an aver- 
age of 1532 a year (21 Annual Report U. S. 
Commissioner of Labor). 

(b) In 1916, 1917 and 1918 there were 11,430, 
an average of 3810 a year. (Monthly Labor 
Review 8:1858). 

(c) "Since the war we have had a perfect 
carnival of strikes." 

(d) Industrial unrest has produced increasing 
uncertainties in business. 

(e) Strikes are always most frequent in times 
of prosperity when wages are highest. 

2. Voluntary arbitration has failed utterly to settle 
or prevent strikes and lockouts, 

(a) Voluntary arbitration is wrong in theory, 
because boards of this kind lack the power 
to compel the parties to arbitrate and the 
power to enforce their awards. 

(b) Voluntary arbitration has failed in foreign 
countries. (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor. 
16:970-7). 



BRIEFS 

(c) It has failed completely in this country. 

(s) Many states have not adopted it. 

(t) Federal laws apply chiefly to trans- 
portation industries. 

(u) In the ten years the law of 1888 was 
in force, not one arbitration board was 
organized under its provisions. 

(v) During the first eight and a half j'ears 
of the Erdman Act, the arbitration ma- 
chinery it created was never utilized. 
(Bulletin, Bureau of Labor 24: I Ja. '12) 

(w) During the next six years, although 
the mediation and conciliation provisions 
of the Erdman Law were used almost 
sixty times, the arbitration features of 
the law were only used four times. 

(x) The Newlands law has failed to pre- 
vent railway strikes, and it failed to 
prevent the crisis at the time of the 
threatened railroad strike of 1916, which 
was prevented only by the passage of 
the Adamson Act. 

(y) The Esch-Cummins law failed to pre- 
vent or settle the switchmen's strike of 
1920. 

(z) The twenty-first annual report of the 
Commissioner of Labor states (p. 85) 
that only one and six-tenths per cent of 
the strikes in the United States between 
1901 and 1905, both years inclusive 
were settled by voluntary arbitration. 
Mediation and conciliation have failed to settle 
the great strikes. 

Trade agreements presuppose ideal relations be- 
tween capital and labor. 

(a) Agreements are often broken by strikes. 
(Switchmen's strike 1920). 

(b) Agreements are often broken by "stop- 
pages" or by "striking on the job." 



BRIEFS xvii 

II. Compulsory Arbitration offers the desired remedy. 

A. It is sound in theory. 

1. Decision by reason is better than decision by 
force. 

2. The public always wants arbitration. 

3. The proposed courts would represent all parties: 

Captital, Labor, and the general pubUc as they 
do in New Zealand. 

4. They will possess two requisites which present 
boards lack. 

(a) The power of permitting either contestant 
to bring the other contestant into court and 
compel him to arbitrate the dispute. 

(b) The power of enforcing its decisions. 

B. The welfare of the people demands enforced arbitra- 

tion. 

1. There is no "right to strike." 

2. In many strikes the general public suffers more 
than either contestant. (Outlook. 94:517-18) 

3. Being thus vitally interested the public has a 
right to demand settlement in a court of justice. 

C. It is the duty of the state to establish these courts. 

(Forum. 14:21-5) 

1. The primary purpose of government and all pub- 
lic authority is the promotion of peace and public 
welfare. (Garner — Introduction to Political Sci- 
ence, p. 316. [311-18]) 

2. The public welfare is involved in all labor dis- 
putes. 

3. Compulsory Arbitration will reduce labor disputes 
to a minimum. 

(a) It has done this in New Zealand and New 
South Wales. 

D. Compulsory Arbitration will lessen the dangers that 

threaten our institutions and civilization. 

1. From socialism because it guarantees the work- 

ers a living wage and continued employment, 
which is all that socialism can offer. 

2. From race suicide. 



xviii BRIEFS 

3. From demagogues or walking delegates or any 

other outgrowth of discontent. 

4. From unreasonable employers. 

III. Compulsory Arbitration is practicable. 

A, Compulsory Arbitration has been successful in New 

Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Kansas, and 
in some other places where it has been tried in a par- 
tial or limited way. 

1. It has benefited capitalists. 

(a) In making contracts they can proceed with- 
out the fear of a strike or of being com- 
pelled to pay unreasonable wages. 

(b) Industrial peace and security have drawn 
capital into the country. 

2. It benefits the employes. 

(a) They are freed from most of the losses 
and hardships of strikes. 

(b) They have legal rights in regard to their 
wages. 

(c) Industrial justice is also extended to those 
who are not able to conduct a successful 
strike. 

(d) "Sweating" has been abolished. 

3. It benefits the general public. 

(a) It is the best guarantee of industrial peace 
yet devised. 

(b) It secures continuous service. 

B. Conditions in this country are favorable to adoption 

of Compulsory Arbitration. 

1. The awards can be enforced. 

(a) On employers or capitalists by fine or im- 
prisonment. 

(b) On employees by 

(w) Fines or imprisonment, as is provided 

in the Kansas law. 
(x) The necessity of working, 
(y) The removal of the cause of a strike, 

namely an unsettled difference, 
(z) By the force of public opinion. 

2. Unjust awards are improbable. 



BRIEFS xix 

(a) These courts (as in New Zealand) would 
be made up of a representative of capital, 
labor, and the general public. 

(b) If conditions make it impossible for an em- 
ployer to pay any certain wage, it will not 
be difficult for him to establish that fact in 
court. 

(c) Working-men do not want or expect a 
wage higher than an industry can pay. 

(d) A wage is always the result of a com- 
promise and the effect upon industry is the 
same whether the compromise is brought 
about by collective bargaining, conciliation 
or in a court of industrial justice. 

(e) Twenty-five years of experience in New 
Zealand and Australasia do not reveal a 
single case of an unjust or unreasonable 
award. 

(f) Gov. Allen of Kansas has said that deci- 
sions of the Industrial court will be so fair 
that within two years all opposition to the 
law will cease. 

It is the natural remedy of the age, the logical next 
step. 

1. No better remedy has ever been proposed. 

(a) The opponents of Compulsory Arbitration 
content themselves with a purely negative 
opposition. They all admit the losses and 
other evil results of strikes, lockouts, boy- 
cotts, blacklists, and violence, but they 
oppose the natural and logical remedy for 
industrial warfare without offering any 
other remedy. 

2. It is in harmony with the spirit of the age. 

(a) Conservation and efficiency are the watch- 
words of this generation. Compulsory 
Arbitration will make for both of these 
ends. 

3. It has steadily gained in favor the world over. 

(a) It has been used for twenty-five years in 
New Zealand and Australia. 



)« BRIEFS 

(b) It has recently been adopted in France, 
Denmark, Norway, and Kansas, and in a 

limited form in some other countries. 

(c) It was a feature of the original Cummins 
railroad bill that passed the United States 
Senate January 1920. 

(d) It has been declared constitutional by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 
(Wilson vs. New. 243 U. S. 332) 

(e) It has been recommended and endorsed by 
many of our ablest scholars and statesmen. 

(v) Senator A. B. Cummins of Iowa 

(w) William Allen White 

(x) Gov. Henry J. Allen of Kansas (Cur- 
rent Opinion 68 : 472, Independent lOi : 
385, Saturday Evening Post Mr. 6, 20. 
Message to Kansas Legislature) 

(y) Ex-Gov. Joseph W. Brown of Georgia. 
(Message to Georgia Legislature June 25, 

1913) 
(z) Judge Gary, Chairman U. S. Steel Cor- 
poration. (Iron Trade Review 66:171) 
4. The extension of the judicial system to adjudicate 
industrial disputes is the logical and inevitable 
conclusion. 

Negative 
Introduction. 

A. Meaning of the question. 

1. All differences between Capital and Labor to be 

settled in this manner. 

2. Either party or the court itself may take the 

initiative. 

3. Special courts are to be established. 

4. The courts are to be given power to compel both 
parties to submit to arbitration and to accept the 
award. 

B. The Negative will show. 

1. Compulsory Arbitration is imnecessary. 

2. It is unwise and undesirable. 

3. It is impracticable. 



BRIEFS xxi 

Compulsory Arbitration is unnecessary. 

A. Strikes are not a sufificient necessity. 

1. Less than 4 per cent of the men engaged in indus- 

try are involved in strikes annually. (Report of 
the Industrial Commission. I7:CXXIX) 

2. Only I work day in 500 lost in strikes, 1/5 of one 
per cent. 

3. Average length of a strike is 25.4 days. (Twenty- 

First Annual Report of the Commissioner of 
Labor, p. 46) 

4. There is no danger to our institutions in strikes, 
(a) Losses are small proportionally, 1/500 part 

in time. 

5. Strikes are not increasing as fast as the popula- 
tion of the country (Adams and Sumner, 
Labor Problems, eighth edition p. 179) 

B. There are now strong factors making for industrial 

peace. 

I. Employe representation in management, with 
shop adjustment councils and impartial boards of 
appeal. (Report of the Industrial Conference 
1920; Bloomfield, Modern industrial movements, 
Basset, When the workmen help you manage; 
Atlantic Monthly 117:12 and Survey 35:72 and 
143- ) 

(a) It is sound in principle. 

(w) It is preventive, not curative. 

(x) It applies the principle of stoppage at 

source, 
(y) It develops good feeling and mutual 

confidence and understanding between 

employer and employe. 
(z) It gives labor a voice in the conduct of 

the business, which develops a feeling 

of responsibility. 

(b) It has worked well in practice. 

(x) It has very largely removed the causes 

of misunderstanding and suspicion. 

(Tailoring Industry in Chicago), 
(y) It has reduced labor unrest to a 

minimum. (Case of Colorado Fuel & 

Iron Co.) 



i BRIEFS 

2. Voluntary arbitration under the Newlands and 

Esch-Cummins Acts, and through state, local and 

unofficial boards. 

(a) Twice as many disputes, involving five 
times as many men, are settled each year by 
voluntary arbitration in New York City 
alone, as have been settled under the Ca- 
nadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act 
in the nine years of that law. (Review of 
Reviews. 55:190) 

3. Mediation and Conciliation. 

4. Trade agreements and collective bargaining. 

5. Intelligent public opinion as is provided for in the 
Esch-Cummins law. 

Compulsory Arbitration is unwise and undesirable. 
A. It is un-American. 

1. Destroys individual liberty. 

(a) Of employer — to employ whom he pleases. 

(b) Of employe — involuntary servitude. 

2. Destroys right of free contract.] 

(a) Employer and employe are forced to be- 
come parties to a contract to which neither 
agrees or has given his consent. 

(b) Capital and labor are not partners, but 
stand in the relation of buyer and seller, 
and should be free to act as such. 

3. It gives the Industrial Courts too great powers. 

(a) One body would be exercising legislative, 
executive, and judicial powers. 

(b) The court can take up a case on its own 
initiative, although neither party has ap- 
pealed to it or wants its judgment. 

[ 4. It is unconstitutional. (Peters. Labor and 
Capital, p. 281). 

(a) It has been so held by the courts, 
(x) State vs. Ryan, 182 Mo. 349. 
(y) State vs. Johnson, 61 Kan. 803. 
L(b) It is in violation of the part of the Con- 
stitution relating to the obligation of 
contract. (Article i, Section 10 :l) 



BRIEFS xxiii 

r (c) It is in violation of the Seventh Amend- 
ment which provides for trial by jury. 
'\^ (d) It is in violation of the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment for it would be involuntary servitude,Jl 
(Hodges vs. U. S., 203 U. S. i, and Amer- 
ican Federationist 23:929 and 26:1046) 
(e) The decision in the case of Wilson vs. 
New, (243 U.S. 332) cannot be considered as 
establishing the law finally on this point. 
(Proceedings of Academy of Political 
Science 7:44-80. Survey 37:737. Railway 
Age Gazette 62 :6i2. Review of Reviews 55 : 
526). 
(x) The District Court had held to the 

contrary, 
(y) The Supreme Court reached its deci- 
sion by a vote of five to four. (See 
Dissenting Opinions). 
(z) The decision applies only to indus- 
tries "charged with a public interest." 
It is wrong in principle. 

1. It comes into play after the dispute has embit- 

tered the parties. 

2. It is curative, not preventive. 

3. It does not employ the principle of stoppage at 
source. 

4. It makes criminals out of men who are only try- 
ing to better their condition. 

It is unjust to employers. 

1. Employers have property and are more easily 

reached by the courts. In New Zealand only 
licensed unions can be made a party to a suit. 
Working-men may act as individuals and keep 
out of reach of the courts, but employers could 
not. 

2. These courts could not prevent a secret boj^cott 
which hurts employers seriously. 

3. It would make conditions of competition unfair 

among employers. 

4. It would destroy freedom of contract. J 

5. It would increase cost of production and drive 
capital out of the country. 



^ 



BRIEFS 

Unfair to employees. (Le Rossingnol and Stewart. 
State Socialism in New Zealand, p. 243) 

1. It would be involuntary servitude. 

2. It would weaken labor unions, if not destroy their 
usefulness. 

1^3. It would encourage increased disrespect for law 
and the judiciary. 

4. It would increase the cost of Hving. (Lc Rossig- 
nol and Stewart. State Socialism in New Zea- 
land, p. 244) 

5. It would be an injury to inefficient workmen. (Le 

Rossignol and Stewart, p. 232) 
^ 6. It would take away from labor its only weapon, 

and leave it unarmed to fight organized capital. 
It would destroy present methods of securing indus- 
trial peace. 

1. Management Sharing and Shop Councils where 
capital and labor meet as friends, would be com- 
pletely ended. 

2. Voluntary arbitration, mediation, and conciliation, 

which require good will and mutual confidence 
would give way as they have in New Zealand. 

3. Trade agreements would be less useful. 

4. Public opinion would be entirely eliminated. 

5. It would widen the gulf between capital and 
labor. 

It is too great an experiment. 

1. Too great a change from existing methods. (Ely. 
Outlines of Economics, p. 405) 

(a) There is nothing in our system of govern- 
ment or industry preliminary to it. 

(b) Anglo-Saxon institutions are always a 
gradual growth ; evolution, not revolution. 

(c) Drastic legislation is seldom good legisla- 
tion. 

2. On too large a scale. 

(a) Too large territory. 

(b) Too much capital involved. 

(c) Too many industries. 

(d) Too many courts required, too great in 
expense. 

(e) Too great variety of conditions. 



BRIEFS xxT 

3. Experiments should always be tried on a small 
scale. 

III. \ Compulsory Arbitration is impracticable. 

\ A. The system has failed wherever it has been tried. 
I. In New Zealand. 

(a) 169 strikes have occurred in the first 25 
■^ years after its adoption. (Research Report 

no. 23, National Industrial Conference 
Board p. 31). 

(b) Courts have been unable to enforce their 
awards. 

(c) No permanent good results have been 
shown. 

(d) There is general dissatisfaction. Pros- 
perity since 1895 not due to Compulsory Ar- 
bitration. (Reeves. State Experiments in 
AustraHa and New Zealand. Vol. II. 
p. 162) 

(e) Conciliation is gradually superceding 
Compulsory Arbitration. (Research Re- 
port No. 23, National Industrial Confer- 
ence Board, p. 28) 

In Australia. 

(a) Frequent strikes have occurred. 

(b) The courts have been unable to enforce 
their awards. 

(c) It has caused disrespect for the courts, 
and for law and authority. 
"■■' (d) It has made industrial warfare more bitter. 
(e) In West Australia the system has been 
abandoned. 
In Kansas. 

(a) The Coal miners struck in protest the day 
after its adoption. 

(b) Union leaders refused to recognize the 
law and were sent to jail. 

(c) Organized labor has been advised to 
move out and to stay out of the state. 

(d) The feeling between Capital and Labor 
has grown more bitter. 



t 



BRIEFS 

Even if Compulsory Arbitration has been successful 
in the South Sea Islands that fact would prove 
nothing for the United States because conditions 
are so very diflFerent. (Research Report No. 23, 
National Industrial Conference Board p. 3). 

1. In size. 

(a) New Zealand is smaller in area than 
Colorado. 

(b) It has about 1,000,000 people, less than one 
per cent of the population of the U.S. 

2. In development. 

(a) New Zealand has very little modern indus- 
try. 

(b) Only 80,000 persons emploj'ed in factories. 

(c) There were only four strikes in the two 
years before the experiment was begun. 

(d) Population is homogenous— 98 per cent of 
the white population is of British blood. 

(e) Conditions are the same throughout the 
two small islands of New Zealand, but are 
very different in the different sections of 
our vast country. 

3. Form of government. 

(a) United States is a decentralized or federal 
government while New Zealand is highly 
centralized. 

(b) Non-interference with personal liberty has 
always been the American principle, while 
New Zealand is the land of fads and 
"isms." They have government railroads, 
telegraphs, telephones, gas-plants, electric 

plants, government insurance, government 
mines and factories. 

(c) In New Zealand the "invisible government" 
is pro-labor. 

If it should be very successful in Kansas, that fact 
would prove nothing for the other states. 

1. Kansas is an agricultural state. 

2. It has very little industry. 

3. Union men make a very small part of the vot- 
ing population. 



/' 



BRIEFS xxvii 

D. Conditions here are unfavorable to the experiment. 

1, Federal form of government; there must be na- 

tional and state courts. 

2. Distrust of the courts by workingmen. (Indus- 

trial Commission 14:46, Monthlj' Labor Review 
10:337-45) 
Compulsory Arbitration could not be made to work 
out here. 1 

1. Awards could not be enforced on either em- 
ployers or employees, nor their sympathizers. 

(a) How could any court compel a million men 
to resume work if they refused to do so? 
(x) By firies? How collect them? It is 

doubtful whether the courts could reach 
the union treasury. It would not be 
practicable to fine each workman 
separately. In either case it is doubt- 
ful whether the fine could be collected. 
(Reconstruction 2:150) 

(y) By imprisonment? How imprison the 
great number involved in any of the 
great strikes. There are not enough 
jails and penitentiaries to hold them. 

(z) Mandatory Injunction proceedings in 
the Federal Courts failed to end the 
bituminous coal strike of 19 19. 

(b) The great corporations could not be com- 
pelled to obey an award, 
(x) They would prolong litigation until the 

resources of the unions were exhausted, 
(y) They would flood the industrial courts 
with petty cases until they were years 
behind in their docket, as has been done 
in Australia and New Zealand. 

2. It is open to too great abuses. 

(a) Politics will influence the courts. 

(b) Judges are often financially interested. 

3. Impossible to get a ju^t decision. 
(a) Courts would have to decide what is a fair 

wage in each separate trade, or a minimum 
wage as in done in New Zealand. 



BRIEFS 

(b) A fair wage or fair minimum wage in a 
small town would not be fair in New York 
City or Boston, for the cost of living is 
higher in the latter place. 
There is general public opposition and distrust. (Re- 
port of the Industrial Commission. XIX:86i) 

1. Opposed by workingmen. (Report of the In- 
dustrial Commission IV :762 and 764 and files of 
the American Federationist). 

2. Employers also oppose it. 

3. Scholars and statesmen are opposed to it. 

(a) Carroll D. Wright, late Commissioner of 
Labor. (Forum. 15:323-31) 

(b) President Hadley of Yale. 

(c) Charles Francis Adams. 

(d) Prof. John R. Commons (American Fed- 
erationist 24:25) 

(e) William J. Bryan (Commoner 20:3 Ja. 
'20) 



COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION' 

Resolved, That Strikes and Lockouts should be prohibited by 
law until investigation of the differences between employer 
and employees has been made by an official body having powei 
to summon witnesses, to administer oath, and to compel the 
production o£ the books and records of the parties, and until 
the findings of this body have been published. 

Affirmative 
Introduction 

A. In the case of food supply, coal, clothing, and all pub- 

lic utilities, or industries affected with a public in- 
terest, the general welfare demands uninterrupted 
service. 

B. The Affirmative is not proposing to make strikes and 

lockouts unlawful, but merely claiming that the dis- 
pute must first be investigated, and the findings of 
the tribunal published. It is then left to public 
opinion to enforce the award, the parties still hav- 
ing the right to call a strike or lockout. 

I. Existing conditions in the industrial relations demand a 

remedy. 

A. There are great evils connected with industrial war- 

fare. 

B. Both parties are injured. 

C. The general public is always injured, sometimes more 

than either antagonist. 

D. Present methods do not afford a satisfactory remedy. 

II. Compulsory Investigation offers the desired remedy. 
A It is sound in theory. 

I. Compulsory Investigation will create an intel- 
ligent and fair public opinion. 

^ This Brief may be elaborated by referring to the corresponding points 
in the previous brief. 



XXX BRIEFS 

2. It does not take away the ultimate rights of 
either employer or employee, nor compel them 
to accept the award. 

B. The welfare of the people demands an intelligent pub- 

lic opinion. 

C. It is the duty of the state to investigate the differences 

between employer and employee and to publish the 
findings. 

I. Only in this way can an intelligent public opinion 
be created. 

D. Compulsory Investigation will lessen the dangers that 

threaten our institutions. 

III. Compulsory Investigation is practicable. 

A. It has been very successful wherever tried. 

1. In Canada it has been a success since 1907. 

(a) During the first twelve years of the law 
there were only 24 strikes within the scope 
of the Act that were not "averted or set- 
tled." 

2. In Colorado it has been successfully tried after 
that state had been torn by industrial warfare 
for several years. (Monthly Labor Review 10: 
810- 1 1 Mr. '20) 

3. It has been successfully used in Denmark, Nor- 
way and New Zealand. 

B. Conditions in this country generally are favorable to 

its adoption here. 

C. It is the natural remedy of the age, the logical next 

step. 

1. No better remedy has ever been proposed. 

2. It is in harmony with the spirit of the age. 

3. It has steadily grown in favor. 

(a) It has recently been adopted in Colorado, 
Norway, Denmark and New Zealand. 

(b) It has been recommended by many of our 
ablest scholars and statesmen. 

(w) Hon. William L. McKenzie King, 
author of the Canadian law. 

(x) President Wilson recommended it to 
Congress in his addresses on Aug. 
29, igi6 and Dec. 5, 1916). 



BRIEFS xxxi 

(y) William J. Bryan (Commoner 20:3 

Ja. '20) 
(z) Charles Francis Adams. (Report on 

the Anthracite Coal Strike, 1903) 

(c) It has never been abandoned by any coun- 
try that has adopted it. 

(d) The Transportation Act of 1920 is a de- 
cided step forward. 

Negative 
Introduction. 

A. The plan here proposed can do very little towards les- 
sening industrial warfare. 
I. It cannot prevent interruption of service. 

(a) Strikes will occur in violation of the law, 
as they have in Canada. 

(b) Strikes are lawful after the period reserved 
for investigation. 

I. Compulsory Investigation is unnecessary. 

A. Strikes are not a sufficient necessity. 

B. There are now strong factors making for industrial 

peace. 

II. Compulsory Investigation is unwise and undesirable. 

A. It is wrong in principle. 

B. It is unjust to employers in many cases. 

I. Employees will take advantage of the law to file 
grievances that would not be presented except 
for the Investigation Law. 

C. It is often unfair to employees. 

I. The delay will give employers the advantage. 

D. It would destroy present methods of securing indus- 

trial peace. 

E. It is too great an experiment. 

III. Compulsory Investigation is impracticable. 
A. It has failed wherever tried. 

I. In Canada. (Bulletin 233 U.S. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics; Review of Reviews 55:190) 
(a) It applies to only an insignificantly small 
part of the industrial disputes of the Do- 
minion. 



li BRIEFS 

(b) There were 204 illegal and 18 legal strikes 
and lockouts during the first ten years of the 
law. 

(c) No permanent beneficial results have been 
attained. 

2. In Colorado (Monthly Labor Review 10:810-11 
Ap. '20) 

(a) Strikes have occurred in violation of the 
law. 

(b) Industrial conditions have not been per- 
manently improved. 

B. Even if it had been successful in Canada, that fact 

would prove nothing for the United States because 
of the difference in industrial conditions. 

1. Canada has fewer people than New York City 

and Chicago. 

2. Canada is sparsely settled, has but few large 

cities, and but little modern industry. 

C. Conditions here are unfavorable to the experiment. 

D. Compulsory Investigation could not be made to work 

out here. 
I. Awards could not be enforced. 

(a) They have not been enforced in Canada, 
where there have been thousands of viola- 
tions of the law and only 23 prosecutions. 

(b) American labor leaders openly declare they 
will not obey the law if it is adopted. 

E. There is general public opposition and distrust. 

1. Employers oppose it. 

2. Workingmen are against it. (See files of Amer- 

ican Federationist, Literary Digest 53:1581) 

3. The majority of scholars and statesmen are op- 

posed to it. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

An asterisk (*) before a title means that the article is reprinted, 
complete or in part, in this volume. A dagger (t) is used to indicate « 
few of the other best references. 

Bibliographies and Briefs 

Baker, George P. and Huntington, Henry B. Principles of 
argumentation. Ginn and Co. 1905. 
An affirmative brief, p. 234-5. 

Brookings, W. D. and Ringwalt, R. C. Briefs for debates. Long- 
mans, Green and Co. 1895. 
A national board of arbitration for railroad disputes, p. 162-4. Briefs 

and bibliography. 

Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. No. 233. Jl 

p. 149-50. Bibliography of operation of the Industrial Disputes In- 
vestigation Act of Canada. 

Carpenter, Oliver C. Debate outlines on public questions. 

Broadway Publishing Co. 1912. 

Briefs and references, p. 13 1-8. 
Gibson, Laurence M. Handbook for literary and debating 

societies. Hodder & Stoughton (London) 1905. 

Ought arbitration in trade disputes to be enforced by law. Syllabi 
and references, p. 24-6. 

Independent. 88:260. N. 6, '16. Briefs and references. E. M. 

Phelps. 

Resolved, That a compulsory arbitration law should be enacted to 
settle all labor disputes on railroads and other common carriers. 

Labor Gazette, i -.41-2. Ja. '16. Bibliography of official docu- 
ments of concerted wage movements of railway employes 
1912-1915. 

Labor Gazette, i :i57-9. N. '16. Arbitration of railway labor 
disputes. 

Library of Congress. List of recent references on industrial 
arbitration. H. H. B. Meyer 1920. [mineographed] 

Library of Congress. Select list of references on industrial ar- 
bitration. Compiled by A. P. C. Griffin. 1903. 

New England Triangular Debate — Compulsory arbitration of 
labor disputes on interstate railroads, Wilson, 1914. 
Resolved, That the Federal government should require compuUory 

arbitration of labor disputes on interstate railroads. 



xxxiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

tPhelps, Edith M. University debaters' annual, 1916-1917. 

Wilson. 1917. 

Chap. III. p. 99-146. "Resolved, that Congress should establish a 
permanent board of arbitration with compulsory powers to arbitrate and 
to settle disputes arising between employers and employees of railroads 
doing interstate business, constitutionality conceded." Coe College debate. 
Briefs, bibliography, and speeches. 

Chap. V. p. 191-225. "Resolved, that Capital and Labor should be 
compelled to settle their disputes in legally established courts of arbitra- 
tion." Columbia University debate. Briefs, bibliography and speeches. 

fPhelps, Edith M. University debaters' annual, 1917-1918. 

Wilson, 1918. 

Chap. I. p. 1-53. "Resolved, that Compulsory Arbitration should be 
adopted for all labor controversies involving railroads and other pub- 
lic service companies." University of Chicago debate. Briefs, biblioj;- 
raphy, speeches. 

Chap. IV. p. 147-91. "Resolved, that Congress should enact legisla- 
tion, providing for the compulsory arbitration of all labor disputes in 
interstate public utilities as a permanent policy." University of Iowa 
debate. Briefs, bibliography, speeches. 

Ringwalt, R. C. Briefs on public questions. Longmans, Green 

and Co. 1906. 

Compulsory Industrial Arbitration, p. 210-8. Briefs and bibliography. 

Shurter, E. D. and Taylor, C. C. Both sides of 100 public 
questions briefly debated. Hinds, Noble, and Eldredge. 1913. 
National Board of Arbitration for Railroad Disputes, p. 142-3. 
University of North Carolina Record. July 191 7. No. 148. Ex- 
tension Series No. 22. 

p. 39-41. "Resolved, That Congress should pass a law requiring com- 
pulsory arbitration of labor disputes where a greater part of the busi- 
ness in which they are engaged is interstate commerce." Bibliography and 
brief outline of the argument. 

University of North Carohna Record. Nov. 1917. No. 152. 

Extension Series No. 26. 84p. 

"Resolved, That Congress should enact a law providing for the com- 
pulsory arbitration of industrial disputes." Briefs, bibliography and re- 
prints. 

[This pamphlet, especially the Brief, is largely a condensation of 
the second edition of the Debaters' Handbook.] 

University of Oklahoma; Extension Division. Bulletin n.s. 137. 

University Extension Series. No. 34. Oct. i, 1917. ii2p. 

"Resolved, That the Federal Government should require compulsory 
arbitration of labor disputes on interstate railroads." Reprints and 
bibliography. 



Books and Pamphlets 

*Adams, Thoinas S. and Sumner, Helen L. Labor problems. 
Macmillan Co. 1905. 

Chap. VIII. p. 287-332. The Agencies of Industrial Peace. 

Addresses before the National Convention of Employers and 
Employees at Minneapolis, September, 1902. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxv 

Altgeld, John P. Live questions. Donohue and Henneberry. 
1890. 

p. 7-21. Protection of noncombatants or arbitration of strikei. 
American Mining Congress. 17th Annual Session (Phoenix). D. 

7, '14. 
p. 231-9. Compulsory arbitration. Samuel O. Dunn. 
Barnett, George E. and McCabe, David A. Mediation, investi- 
gation and arbitration in industrial disputes. Appleton. 
1916. 

Barns, William E. Labor problem. Harper and Bros. 1886. 
Chapter X. p. 231-55. Trade unions and arbitration. 

Bliss, W. D. P. Arbitration and conciliation in industrial dis- 
putes. Church Union. 1895. 

*Bliss, W. D. P. New encyclopedia of social reform. Funk 
and Wagnalls. 1908. 

Article on arbitration and conciliation, p. 58-65; also articles on strike*, 
strike-breaking, boycotting, blacklisting, etc. 

Broadhead, Henry. State regulation of labour and labour dis- 
putes in New Zealand. P. S. King. London. 1908. 

Carlton, Frank T. The history and problems of organized 
labor. D. C. Heath and Co. 191 1 

Chap. IX. p. 228-62. Methods of promoting industrial peace. 
Chapman, Sydney J. Work and wages. Longmans, Green & 

Co. 1908. 

Vol. II. Chap. IV. p. 206-303. Principles and methods of industrial 
peace. 

Clark, Victor S. Labor movement in Australasia, A study in 
social democracy. Henry Holt and Co. 1906. 
Chaps. VII-X. p. 138-245. 

Commons, John R., ed. Trade unionism and labor problems. 
Ginn & Co. 1905. 
Introduction p. 1-12 and Chapter VIII. p. 195-221. 

Crompton, H. Industrial conciliation. P. S. King & Co. Lon- 
don. 1876. 

Dawson, William H. The German workman. Scribners. 1906. 
Chap. XIV. p. 176-93- Industrial courts of arbitration. 

Dunn, Samuel O. Regulation of railways. D. Appleton & 
Co. 1918. 

Chap. X. p. 171-90. Peaceful settlement of labor disputes or strikes. 

Eliot, Charles W. Future of trade unionism and capitalism in 

a democracy. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1910. 
Ely, Richard T. Labor movement in America. Macmillan Co. 

1905. 



xxxvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ely, Richard T. Studies in the evolution of industrial society. 
Macmillan Co. 1903. 

Part II. Chapter X. Industrial peace. 

Friedman, Elisha M. Labor and reconstruction in Europe. 
E. P. Button & Co. 1919. 

Gilman, Nicholas P. Methods of industrial peace. Houghton, 
Mifflin Co. 1904. 

Gray, J. Grathan. Australasia old and new. Hodder and 
Stoughton. London. 1901. 

Groat, George G. Introduction to the study of organized la- 
bor in America. Macmillan. 1916. 
Chaps. XII and XIII. p. 204-38. Arbitration. 

Hamilton, William F. Compulsory arbitration in industrial 
disputes. Butterworth & Co. 1913. 

Howe, Frederick C. Socialized Germany. Scribners. 1915. 
Chap. XIII. p. 182-91. Labor and industrial courts. 

Howell, George. Conflicts of capital and labor. 2nd edition. 
Macmillan Co. 1890. 
Chap. XI. p. 433-53. Conciliation and arbitration in trade disputes. 

Howell, George. Labor legislation, labor movements, and labor 
leaders. E. P. Button and Co. 1902. 

King, Hon. VV. L. Mackenzie. Industry and humanity. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin Co. 1918. 
Chap. VII. p. 167-232. Principles underlying peace. 

Knapp, Martin A. Government tnediation in railway labor dis- 
putes, an Address at the second annual convention on the 
National Association of Railway Commissioners. Published 
by the Interstate Commerce Commission. 1909. 

Knoop, Bouglas. Industrial conciliation and arbitration. P. S. 
King, London. 1905. 

Labour Year Book. [Great Britain]. Co-operative printing 
society. London. 

La Follette, Robert M. (ed.) The making of America. John B 
Morris & Co. 

Vol. VIII contains the following articles: 

104-9. The limitations of conciliation and arbitration. Samuel 
Gompers. 

109-17. Is compulsory arbitration practicable? Seth Low. 

118-26. Objections to compulsory arbitration. Joseph P. Archibald. 

Lalor, John J. Cyclopaedia of political science, political econ- 
omy and political history of the United States. M. B. 
Gary & Co. 1883. 
Vol. II. p. 503-5. Article on industrial arbitration and conciliation. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxvii 

^/*Lc Rossignol, James E. and Stewart, William D. State social- 
ism in New Zealand. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. igio. 

Chap. XIII. p. 216-37. The Arbitration act. 

Chap. XIV. p. 338-49. Compulsory arbitration in theory and practice. 

Chap. XV. p. 250-68. Strikes. 

*Lloyd, Henry D. Country without strikes. Doubleday, Page 
& Co. 1900. 

Lloyd, Henry D. Newest England. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
igoi. 

Lowell, Josephine Shaw. Industrial arbitration and concilia- 
tion. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1893. 

*McLaughlin, A. C. and Hart, A. B. Cyclopedia of American 
government. D. Appleton & Co. 1904. 
Vol. I. p. 66-8. Arbitration of labor disputes. C. F. Gettemy. 

McNeill, George E. Labor movement : The problem of today. 
A. M. Bridgman & Co. 1887. 
Chapter 20. p. 497-507- 

Mabie, E. C. and White, L. D. Compulsory arbitration of la- 
bor disputes on interstate railroads. Dartmouth-Brown- 
Williams debate. Wilson. 1914. 

Marot, Helen. American labor unions. Henry Holt. 1914. 
p. 149-61. Arbitration. 

*Mitchell, John. Organized labor. American Book & Bible 
House. 1903. 

Chap. XXXVIII. p. 337-46. The strike versus compulsory arbitration. 

^*Mote, Carl H. Industrial arbitration. Bobbs-Merrill Co. 
1916. 

National Civic Federation. Report of the proceedings of the 
conference held under the auspices of the National Civic 
Federation at New York, December, 1901. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 1902. 

National civic federation proceedings twelfth annual meet- 
ing. J. J. Little and Ives Co. 1912. 

Contains the following addresses: 

4-7. A plea for industrial peace. Cardinal Gibbons. 

25-34. Government mediation in railroad labor disputes. Martin A. 
Knapp. 

34-9. Mediation and arbitration of railway labor disputes in the 
United States. Charles P. Neill. 

v' National industrial conference board, 15 Beacon St., Boston, 

Mass. Issues a series of "Research Reports." 

No. 5. The Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act. 28 p. 
April, 1918. 

No. 10. Arbitration and wage-fixing in Australia. 52 p. Oct., 1918. 

No. 21. Works councils in the United States, 135 p. Oct., 1919. 

*No. 23. Conciliation and arbitration in New Zealand 46 p. Dec, 



xxxviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Palgrave, R. H. I. Dictionary of political economy. Macmil- 
lan & Co. London. 1900. 
Vol. I. p. SI. 

Parsons, Frank. Story of New Zealand. C. F. Taylor. 1904. 

^Peters, John P. (ed.) Labor and capital. A discussion of the 
relation of employer and employed. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
1902. 

Pigou, A. C. Principles and methods of industrial peace. 
Macmillan Co. 1905. 
^ Rankin, M. T. Arbitration and conciliation in Australasia. Al- 
len and Unwin. 1916. 

*Reeves, W. Pember. State experiments in Australia and New 
Zealand. Grant Richards. London. 1902. 
Vol. II. p. 69-181. 

^Report of the Board of Arbitration in the matter of the con- 
troversy between the Eastern Railroads and the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers. 1912. 
General considerations, p. 86-109. 
Minority report, p. 121-3. 

Scholefield, Guy H. New Zealand in evolution. Charles Scrib- 

ner's Sons. 1909. 
Stockett, J. Noble. The arbitral determination of railway 

wages. Houghton, Mifflin Co. 1918. 
Stufifern, Arthur E. Conciliation and arbitration in the coal 

industry of America. Houghton, Mififlin Co. 1915. 
Thompson, Slason (ed.) The Railway library 191 1. Gunthorp- 

Warren Co. 1912. 

p. 225-8. Arbitration of railway labor disputes. F. O. Melcher. 

*Trachtenberg, Alexander L. The American Labor Year Book. 
Rand School of Social Science. New York City. 

Vol. I. 1916. 

Vol. 2. 1917-18, p. 136 et seq. 

Vol. 3. 1919-20. 

*Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. Industrial democracy. Long- 
mans, Green & Co. 1902. 

Womer, Parley P. The Church and the labor conflict. Mac- 
millan. 1913. 
Chap. XI. p. 228-50. The Establishment of Labor Courts. 

Wright, Carroll D. Industrial conciliation and arbitration. 
Rand, Avery & Co. 1881. 

Wright, Carroll D. Industrial evolution of the United States. 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 1901. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Periodicals 



American Catholic Quarterly. 25:109-19. Ja. '00. Industrial ar- 
bitration. Rev. Rene Holaind. 

American Economic Association, Publications, 3d series. 10: 
158-79. Ap. '09. Canadian Industrial Disputes Act. A. Shortt. 

American Economic Review. 5:sup245-69. Mr. '15. Public regu- 
lation of railway wages. Frank H. Dixon. 

^American Economic Review. 6:324-42. Je. '16. Wage theories 
in industrial arbitration. Wilson Compton. 

American Economic Review. 7:195-8. Mr. '17. Arbitration 
awards under the Erdman and Newlands acts. D. A. Mc- 
Cabe. 

American Employer. 2:153-8. O. '13. Compulsory labor arbi- 
tration. Hon. Joseph M. Brown. 

Message of the Governor of Georgia. 

American Federationist. 8:38-42. F. '01. As to compulsory 
arbitration. Henry White. 

American Federationist. 8:48-9. F. '01. The right "to strike 
at will." Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 8:107-14. Ap. '01. American trade 
unions and compulsory arbitration. Walter MacArthur. 

American Federationist. 9 :307-io. Je. '02. Limitations o£ con- 
ciliation and arbitration. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 15 :447. Je '08. Industrial Disputes Act 
of Canada. John A. Flett. 

*American Federationist. 20:17-31. Ja. '13. Compulsory ar- 
bitration in the railroad engineers' award. Samuel Gom- 
pers. 

American Federationist. 20:115-25. F. '13. Tying workers to 
their tasks through compulsory government investigation. 
Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 20:209-14. Mr. '13. Industrial peace: 
Sins committed in its name (editorial). Samuel Gompers. 

fAmerican Federationist. 21 :3i6-20. Ap. '14. Lesson for com- 
pulsory arbitrationists. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 21 :73i-3. S. '14. Compulsory arbitra- 
tion's latest evangelist. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 22:843-5. O. '15. Chicago's strikes — 
their lesson. V. A. Sorray. 

American Federationist. 22: 853-4. O. '15. Invasion by commis- 
sion. Samuel Gompers. 



xl BIBLIOGRAPHY 

American Federationist. 22:1041-7. D. '15. That invasion by 
commission editorial. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 23 ■.437-52. Je. '16. Benevolent com- 
pulsion in Colorado. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 23 :929-36. O. '16. Compulsory service 
or freedom, which? Samuel Gompers. 

fAmerican Federationist. 23:1146-8. D. '16. The Railroad 
Brotherhoods' strike. [Extract from the Report of the ex- 
ecutive council of the American Federation of Labor to 
Baltimore Convention.] 

fAmerican Federationist. 24:21-5. Ja. '17. Compulsory service 
unconstitutional. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 24:45-6. Ja. '17. Freedom must not be 
surrendered. Samuel Gompers. 

fAmerican Federationist. 24: 126-7. F. 'i7- The yoke will not 
be worn. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 24:201-3. Mr. '17. Freedom gives 
national virility. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 24:290-1. Ap. '17. Five to four on 
slavery. Samuel Gompers. 

American Federationist. 26:142-3. F. '19. Industrial arbitration 
in Australia. George S. Beeby. 

fAmerican Federationist. 26:1046-8. N. '19. Era of slavery 
has passed. Samuel Gompers. 

fAmerican Industries. 16:41. Jl. '16. Is the compulsory ar- 
bitration system doomed? 

American Industries. 17:21-3. D. '16. Compulsory arbitration 
in Australia fails. A. St. Ledger. 

American Journal of Politics. 5 :487. N. '94. Compulsory arbi- 
tration. D. M. Fredericksen. 

American Journal of Social Science. 21:147-58. S. '85. Arbitra- 
tion of labor disputes. Rev. Washington Gladden. 

American Journal of Social Science. 28:66-85. O. '91. Wisdom 
is better than weapons of war. Mrs. C. R. Lowell. 

American journal of Social Science. 28:86-100. O. 'gi. Com- 
pulsory arbitration. Seymour Dexter. 

American Journal of Social Science. 31 :lxiii-lxxii. Ja. '94. 
Compulsory arbitration. Rev. H. L. Wayland. 

American Labor Legislation Review. 5:756-60. D. '15. Trade 
unions and trade disputes. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xli 

American Law Review. 28:595-7. Ag. '94. Arbitration in con- 
tests between capital and labor. 

American Law Review. 51 :8oi-82. N. '17. Power and duty 
of the state to settle disputes between employer and em- 
ployees. George S. Ramsay. 

American Machinist. 24:901-4. Ag. 8, '01. Industrial arbitra- 
tion. Chauncey H. Castle. 

American Magazine of Civics. 8:337. Ap. '96. Legislative 
remedy for labor disputes. H. A. Drake. 

American Political Science Review. 3:209-10. My. '09. Arbitra- 
tion amendment in New Zealand. William M. Leiserson. 

Annalist. 8:260. Ag. 28, '16. To end great strikes forever. 

Annals of the American Academy. 20:29-34. JI. '02. Limitations 
of conciliation and arbitration. Samuel Gompers. 

Annals of the American Academy. 24:285-95. S. '04. Arbitra- 
tion of industrial disputes. E. E. Clark. 

Annals of the American Academy. 33 :440-7. Mr. 7, '09. Pres- 
ent state of labor legislation in Australia and New Zea- 
land. Victor S. Clark. 

Annals of the American Academy. Vol. 36. No. 2. S. '10 is de- 
voted entirely to "the settlement of labor disputes" and 
contains the following and several others: 

* p. 302-10. Compulsory arbitration in the United States. 
Cornelius J. Doyle. 

t p. 311-20. Necessity of industrial arbitration. Rabbi Joseph 
Krauskofif. 
p. 419-37. Canadian industrial disputes investigation act. 

F. A. Acland. 
p. 438-44. Settlement and prevention of industrial disputes 

in New Zealand. Paul Kennaday. 
p. 445-52. German courts for the arbitration of industrial 
disputes. Harris Weinstock. 

tx\nnals of the American Academy. 37:203-11. Ja. '11. Indus- 
trial arbitration in Australia. P. S. Eldershaw and P. P. 
Olden. 

Annals of the American Academy. 44: 1-144. N. '12. The out- 
look for industrial peace, 
p. 1-9. Canadian Industrial Disputes Act. Marcus M. 

Marks, 
p. 18-27. Conditions fundamental to industrial peace. 
George B. Hugo. 



xlii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Annals of the American Academy. 69:140-279. Ja. '17. Con- 
tains the following: 
t p. 140-9. Evolution of legal remedies as a substitute 

for violence and strikes. Henry W. Ballentine. 
t p. 150-6. The advantages and defects of compulsory 
arbitration. Frank T. Carlton, 
p. 157-69. Canadian legislation concerning industrial 

disputes. F. A. Acland. 
p. 170-2. The attitude of organized labor toward the 
Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act. A. B. 
Garretson. 
p. 173-82. The trend of voluntary conciliation and ar- 
bitration in labor disputes. George M. Janes, 
p. 223-8. Federal arbitration legislation. L. E. HoflF- 
man. 
t p. 229-36. Why I believe the interstate commerce com- 
mission should have power to fix wages and hours of 
labor on interstate carriers. Oscar W. Underwood 
p. 237-46. Shall the interstate commerce commission and 
the state public utilit}^ commissions fix wages on the rail- 
roads and on local public utilities? Delos F. Wilcox. 
t p. 268-79. Government arbitration and mediation. James 

T. Young. 
Arena. 7:30-6. D. '92. Compulsory arbitration. Rev. Ly- 
man Abbott. 
Arena. 7:306-11. F. '93. Compulsory national arbitration. 

Rabbi Solomon Schindler. 
Arena. 7:587-94. Ap. '93. Compulsory arbitration— a reply. 

C. A. Reed. 
Arena. 16 : 622. S. '96. Compulsory arbitration — A prac- 
ticable remedy. N. T. Mason. 
*Arena. 17:663. Mr. '97. Compulsory arbitration. Frank 

Parsons. 
Arena. 17:922-8. My. '97. Conciliation vs. arbitration. Cour- 

tenay De Kalb. 
Arena. 23:499-515. My. '00. Delusion of compulsory arbi- 
tration. P. H. Coggins. 
Arena. 28: 561-8. D. '02. Private property and public rights. 

Edwin Maxey. 
Arena. 29: 1-25. Ja. '03. Great coal strike and its lessons. 
Ernest H. Crosby. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlm 

fArena. 31:1-11. Ja. '04. Abolition of strikes and lockouts. 
Frank Parsons. 

fArena. 31 : 464-71. My. '04. Political revolution in New Zea- 
land which laid the foundation for the establishment of 
industrial arbitration on demand. Frank Parsons. 

Arena. 32:303. S. '04. Industrial peace through arbitration. 

Arena. 39:64-5. Ja. '08. Principles of arbitration. F. M, 
Willis. 

Arena 39 : 532-8. My. '08. Compulsory arbitration. T. 
Schroeder. 

fArena. 40: 137-41. S. '08. Compulsory arbitration under 
storm sails. Edward Tregear. 

Atlantic Monthly. 67: 34-44. Ja. '91. Compulsory arbitration. 
Charles W. Clark. 

f Atlantic Monthly. 90: 667-74. N. '02. Australasian cure^ for 
coal wars. H. D. Lloyd. 

f Atlantic Monthly, m: 533-9- Ap. '13. Industrial peace or 
war. Everett P. Wheeler. 

*Bellman. 22: 35. Ja. 13, '17. Compulsory arbitration. 

Bulletin International Railway Congress Assn. [English edition] 
27:300-14. The question of compulsory arbitration in the 
railway service. Marcel Peschaud. 

Business Digest. 4:261-2. N. 7, '17. Does Canada's compul- 
sory act compel? 

*Call of the Moose, April and May, 1914. Industrial peace. 
Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King. 

Canadian Law Times. 36:207-22. Mr. '16. Canadian legi-sla- 
tion concerning industrial disputes. F. A. Acland. 

Canadian Magazine. 29: 247-8. Jl. '07. An instance of indus- 
trial arbitration. J. F. Mackay. 

Cassier's Magazine. 23:558-65. F. '03. Remedy for strikes, 
or investigation and publicity as opposed to compulsory 
arbitration. Charles Francis Adams. 

Catholic World. 72: 145-57. N. '00. Country without strikes. 
Rev. John A. Ryan. 
\/ Central Law Journal. 83: 122-3. Ag. 17, '17. Australian arbi- 
tration court eflfective against strikes. J. S. Ryan. 

Central Law Journal. 83:199-200. S. 22, '16. Compulsory ar- 
bitration the logical evolution of workmen's compensation 
acts. 



xliv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Century. 31 (n. s. 9) :946-52. Ap. '86. Strikes, lockouts and 

arbitration. George M. Powell. 
Century. 90 (n. s. 68) :433-40- Jl- 'i5- A way to industrial peace. 

George Creel. 
Charities and the Commons. 21 71-2. O. 3, '08. To arbitrate or 

conciliate. 
Chautauquan. 34:10. O. '01. Society's right to industrial peace. 
Chicago Legal News. 49:6. Ag. 3, '16. Organized arbitration 

of trade disputes. S. Rosenbaum. 
Collier's Weekly. 37:21-3. Je. 30, '06. The arbitration courts 

of Australia. Florence F. Kelly. 
*Colliery Engineer. 34:294-6. D. '13. Arbitration as a factor in 

the mining industry. William B. Wilson. 
♦Commoner. 20:3. Ja. '20. An industrial peace plan. William 

J. Bryan. 
Contemporary Review. 93 : 308-25. Mr. '08. Arbitration courts 

and wages boards in Australasia. J. R. Macdonald. 
Current Literature. 27:158. F. '00. Compulsory arbitration in 

New Zealand. Henry D. Lloyd. 
Current Literature. 29:513-15. N. '00. Compulsory arbitration 

in New Zealand. 
tCurrent Literature. 33 : 596. N. '02. Compulsory arbitration. 

William A. Stone. 
tCurrent Literature. 34:86. Ta. '03. Better than strikes. W. 

Pember Reeves. 
Current Opinion. 57:68-9. Jl. '14. Groping towards industrial 

peace. 
Current Opinion. 68; 472-8. Ap. '20. How Kansas broke a strikej 

and solved the labor problem. Gov. Henry J. Allen. ^_y 

Economic Journal. 8 : 461 -73. N. '98. Industrial conciliation — a 

retrospect. L. L. Price. 
Economic Journal. 9:85. Mr. '99. Compulsory arbitration. 
Economic Journal. 12:320. S. '02. Mr. Wise's (New South 

Wales) Industrial Arbitration Act. W. Pember Reeves. 
Economic Journal. 25:321-8. S. '15. Artificial regulation of 

wages in Australia. G. S. Beeby. 
Economic Journal. 25 : 329-46. S. '15. Industrial arbitration in 

New South Wales. F. A. A. Russell. 
Economic World, n. s. 13:43-5. Ja. 13, '17. Canadian compul- 
sory labor disputes investigation act : Is it a success in 

Canada and does it promise a solution for the United 

States? R. M. Easley. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlv 

Economist. 73:557-8. S. 16, '11. The prevention of strikes by 
law. 

Edinburgh Review. 191 : 1-21. Ja. '00. Conciliation and arbi- 
tration in trade disputes. 

Edinburgh Review. 2ig : 195-21 1. Ja. '14. The compulsory settle- 
ment of industrial disputes. W. G. Constable. 

Electric Railway Journal. 40:730. O. 10, '12. Extract from the 
Australasian of Je. 15, '12. 

Electric Railway Journal. 40:759. O. 10, '12. Arbitration in 
Australia. J. S. Badger. 

Electric Railway Journal. 41 : 212-24. F- i, 'i3- Government me- 
diation in railroad labor disputes. Seth Low. 

Electric Railway Journal. 41:318-19. F. 22, '13. Needed 
amendment of the Erdman Act. 

Electric Railway Journal. 41:791. My. 3, '13. Compulsory 
arbitration. 

Electric Railway Journal. 46: 174-5. Jl- 3i. '^S- Labor and arbi- 
tration. 

Electric Railway Journal. 48: 1 106-9. N. 25, '16. Labor disputes 
and public utilities. 

Engineering Magazine. 20:920-6. F. '01. Arbitration of labor 
questions necessary to industrial ascendancy. Charles B. 
Going. 

Engineering Magazine. 24:149-51. Ag. i, '02. Arbitration or 
litigation. 

Engineering Magazine. 44:597-8. Ja. '13. Railway arbitration 
(editorial). 

Engineering Magazine. 51 : 748-9. Ag. '16. Are labor troubles 
preventable ? 

Engineering News. 69 : 733-4. Ap. 10, '13. Legislation to avoid 
railway strikes. 

Engineering News-Record. 82:1233. Je. 19, '19. To arbitrate 
jurisdictional building strikes. 

Financial Review of Reviews. 7:5-13. O. '11. Proposed indus- \ 
trial court for settlement of labor disputes. C. W. Macara f 

Fortnightly Review. 97:585-98. Ap. '12. (n. s. vol. 91). Anti- 
strike legislation in Australasia. Sidney Low. 

Forum. i : 307-13. Je. '86. Arbitration and labor disputes. 
Thomas M. Cooley. 

Forum. 8:406-16. D. '89. Do we want industrial peace? W. G. 
Sumner. 



xlvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Forum. 14: 14-25. S. '92. Lesson of Homestead; A remedy for 

labor troubles. Chauncey F. Black. v 

tForum. 15:323-31. My. '93. Compulsory arbitration an im-J 

possible remedy. Carroll D. Wright. 
Forum. 18: 1-19. S. '94. A lesson of recent civil disorders. 

T. M. Cooley. 
Forum. 30:737-51. F. '01. American trade-unions and com- 
pulsory arbitration. W. MacArthur. 
tForum. 48:553-64. N. '12. Industrial war. Hugo H. Lusk. 
Forum. 60:267-9. S. '18. Labor regulation: the problem of the 

war labor policies board. William B. Wilson. 
Green Bag. 19:694-701. D. '07. Industrial peace legislation in 

Canada. John King. 
Gunton's Magazine. 10: 138. F. '96. Compulsory arbitration. 

Jerome Dowd. 
Gunton's Magazine. 14 : 236. Ap. '98. Industrial arbitration in 

Congress. Carroll D. Wright. 
Gunton's Magazine. 23:371. N. '02. Triumph of arbitration. 
Gunton's Magazine. 25:110-5. Ag. '03. A permanent labor 

Court of Appeals. 
Gunton's Magazine. 25 ■.369-72. O. '03. New plan of arbitration. 
Gunton's Magazine. 27:246-56. S. '04. Industrial peace. 
Harper's Weekly. 54:9-10. N. 30, '12. The "get together" idea. 

Robert Sloss. 
Harper's Magazine. 131 : 675-80. Party of the third part. W. E. 

Weyl. 
Harvard Graduates' Magazine. 28:14-25. S. '19. Arbitration in 

labor disputes. R. D. Weston. 
harvard Law Review. 29:13-39. N. '15. A new province for) 

law and order. Henry B. Higgins. 
Harvard Law Review. 32:189-217. Ja. '19. New province of 

law and order. Henry B. Higgins. 
Harvard Law Review. 32:892-901. Je. '19. Effect of an increase 

in the living wage by a court of industrial arbitration upon 

vested rights and duties under pre-existing awards. W. J. 

Brown. 
Harvey's Weekly. 3:6. Ap. 3, '20. Mr. Gompers objects.^ 
Independent. 50:657. S. i. '98. Arbitration in railway affairs. 
Independent. 51 :2029-3O. Jl. 27, '99. Compulsory arbitration. 
Independent. 52:1274. My. 24, '00. New Zealand's remedy for 

strikes. 



) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlvii 

Independent. 52 : 2423-4. O. 4, '00. Benefits of arbitration. Car- 
dinal Gibbons. 

Independent. 53:2742-3. N. 7, '01. Labor situation in New Zea- 
land. Edward Tregear. 

Independent. 54:1835-7. JI. 31, '02. Industrial arbitration in 
Australia. H. T. Burgess. 

Independent. 54:1850-1. Jl. 31, '02. Constitution government 
in industry. 

Independent. 54:2065-8. Ag. 28, '02. National federation. R. M. 
Easley. 

^Independent. 54 : 2219-20. S. 18, '02. Compulsory arbitration. 
William A. Stone. 

Independent. 54:2228-30. S. 18, '02. Dictation by the unions. 
John Mitchell. 

Independent. 54:2378-9. O. 2, '02. Compulsory arbitration. 

Independent. 54 : 2446-7. O. 16, '02. Strike should be arbitrated. 
Cardinal Gibbons. 

tindependent. 54 : 2681-2. N. 13, '02. Do we want compul- 
sory arbitration? John B. Clark. 

tindependent. 55 : 1908-10. Ag. 13, '03. Industrial arbitration 
in New Zealand. Edward Tregear. 

Independent. 56:357-9. F. 18, '04. Arbitration in New Zealand. 
Richard J. Sheldon. 

Independent. 56:1440-4. Je. 23, '04. Arbitration, conciliation, 
trade agreement. John R. Commons. 

Independent. 65 : 1049-52. N. 5, '08. Canada's labor dispute act 
W. R. Givens. 

Independent. 69:1467-8. D. 29, '10. Compulsory arbitration in 
France. 

Independent. 71:552-3. S. 7, '11. Labor arbitration on trial ") 
(editorial). 

*Independent. 72:885-7. Ap. 25, '12. Has compulsory arbitra- ) 
tion failed? Edward Tregear. 

Independent. 72 :9d8-9. Ap. 25, '12. Compulsory arbitration, 
(editorial). 

*Independent. 74:273-5. F. 6, '13. The solution of industrial 
peace. 

Independent. 75:182-4. Jl. 24, '13. The amended Erdman act 

Independent. 87:324-5. S. 4, '16. Canada's solution of the rail- 
road problem. 

Independent. 88:62-4. O. 9, '16. Shall force or reason rule. 
Charles E. Hughes. 



xlviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

♦Independent. 88:139. O. 23, '16. Where do the people come 
in? 

♦Independent. 89: 142-4. Ja. 22, '17. The right to strike. Austin 
B. Garretson. 

♦Independent. 89: 143-4. Ja. 22, '17. Trial by jury. Elisha Lee.^ 

Independent. 100:35-7. N. I, '19. Congress considers strikes. -J 

flndependent. loi : 385-6, 409-10. Mr. 13, '20. Let the peopled 
freeze. Gov. Henry J. Allen. ^ 

Independent Review (London). 9:310-23. Je. '06. Conciliation 
and arbitration in trade disputes. I. H. Mitchell. 

Industrial Management. 59:290-3. Ap. '20. The Kansas Court\ 
of Industrial Relations : an attempt that is being watched J 
with keenest interest. P. F. Walker. 

International Socialist Review. 9:444-50. D. '08. New Zealand 
myth. R. R. LaMonte. 

International Socialist Review. 17:458-9. F. '17. Compulsor}' ar- 
bitration in Australia. Scott Bennett. 

Iron Trade Review. 63:255-7. Ag. i, '18. Compulsory arbitra- 
tion is opposed by investigators of British industrial un- 
rest. J. Horton. y 

Iron Trade Review. 65 : 1272-3. N. 6, '19. Seek national indus-\ 
trial court: Society of industrial engineers in national con-| 
vention urges president to establish agency with powerv 
to enforce decisions. 

Iron Trade Review. 66:169-71. Ja. 8, '20. Offer national arbi- 
tration plan. 

♦Iron Trade Review. 66:171. Ja. 8, '20. Voluntary arbitration 
not the solution, says Judge Gary. 

Johns Hopkins L'^nivcrsity Studies. 19:264-9. Ap. '01. State ac- 
tivities in relation to labor in the United States : industrial 
conciliation and arbitration. W. F. Willoughby. 

Johns Hopkins University Studies. 34 :29-37. 1916. Arbitration 
and control. George M. Janes. 

Journal American Social Science Association. 21:147-58. '86. 
Arbitration of labor disputes. Washington Gladden. 

Journal of Political Economy. 16:88-93. F. '08. Settlement of 
industrial disputes in Canada. W. W. Edgar. 

Journal of Political Economy. 24:254-83. Mr. '16. Settlement 
of disputes under agreements in the anthracite industry. 
E. Sydenstricker. 

Journal of Political Economy. 26:425-60. My. '18. War labor 
program and its administration. L. C. Marshall. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY xlix 

Journal of Political Economy. 26:882-900. N. '18. Compulsory 
arbitration in Great Britain during the war. Milton Moses. 

Journal of Political Economy. 27:421-56. Je. '19. Work of wage 
adjustment boards. A. M. Bing. 

Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, n.s. 10:262- 
5. D. '10. Review of legislation, 1901. New South Wales. 
E. L. de Hart. 

Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, n.s. 10:285- 
9. D. '02. Review of legislation, 1901, West Australia. R. W. 
Lee. 

Juridical Review. 14:394-403. D '02. Industrial arbitration in 
New South Wales. F. R. Sanderson. 

Labor Gazette, i :2i. N '15. Canadian Industrial Disputes Act. 

Labor Gazette, i : 155. N. '16. The operation of the Canadian 
Industrial Disputes Act. 

Labor Gazette, i : 156. N. '16. Law to prevent strikes. Offi- 
cial studies of anti-strike legislation. 

Law and Labor, i : 1-4. O. '19. Two bills for the better pro- 
tection of public welfare against unwarranted strikes and 
lockouts. 

Law and Labor. 1:5. D. '19. The President's appeal for arbi- 
tration, October 24th, 1919. 

*Law and Labor, i :5-6. D. '19. The President's statement on 
October 25th. 

Law and Labor, i : 7-8. D. '19. Acting President Lewis's reply 
to the President, October 30th. 

Law and Labor, i : 20-3. D. '19. Labor provisions of the pro- 
posed railroad legislation. 

*Law and Labor. 1:23. D. '19. Organized labor and the rail- 
road bills. 

='*Law and Labor. 2:31-3. F. '20. The Kansas Industrial Court ) 
Bill. ^ 

^Law and Labor. 2:45. F. '20. The National Grange and the 
Cummins Bill. 

Law and Labor. 2 :54-7. Mr. '20. Labor provisions of the Rail- 
road Bill. 

*Law and Labor. 2:85-9. Ap. '20. Address of Governor Allen.) 

Literary Digest. 51 :890-i. O. 23, '15. Colorado's "Republic of 
Labor." 

Literary Digest. 53 : 543-4- S. 2, '16. Arbitration and the eight 
hour day. 



1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*Literary Digest. 53:1581-3. D. 16, '16. The President's anti- 
strike message. 

Literary Digest. 62:9-11. S. 13, '19. The Cummins cure for 
our railroad distress. 

Literary Digest. 64:14-15. Ja. 10, '20. National court for la- 
bor. 

Literary Digest. 64:17-18. F. 7, '20. Kansas strike cure.^ 

Living Age. 273:451-61. My. '12. Anti-strike legislation in 
Australasia. Sidney Low. 
^■fLiwing Age. 304:508-12. F. 28, '20. Arbitration in Australia. 
P. Airey. 

tMcClure's Magazine. 30:149-56. D. '07. Canadian act to aid 
in the prevention and settlement of strikes and lockouts. 
C. W. Eliot. 

fMcClure's Alagazine. 33 : 515-19. S. '09. Best way to prevent) 
industrial warfare. C. W. Eliot. 

Michigan Law Review. 13:185-204. Ja. '15. A comparison of 
some methods of conciliation and arbitration of industrial 
disputes. James H. Brewster. 

Mining Congress Journal. 3: 1-2. Ja. '17. Compulsory investiga- 
tion of industrial disputes. 

Nation. 40 : 377-8. My. 7, '85. Arbitration. 

Nation. 42 : 354. Ap. '86. President Cleveland on arbitration. 

Nation. 44:112-3. F. 10, '87. Arbitration. 

Nation. 59:42. Jl. 19, '94. Limits of arbitration. 

Nation. 66:436-7. Je. 9, '98. Railroad labor arbitration. 

Nation. 70:471. Je. 21, '00. Arbitration, compulsory and other. 

Nation. 73:488. D. 26, '01. Progress of labor arbitration. 

Nation. 74 : 165. F. 27, '02. A new scheme to avoid labor 
troubles. 

Nation. 81 : 50-2. Jl. 20, '05. Crisis of industrial arbitration. 

Nation. 95:500-1. N. 28, '12. The railway wage award, (ed.) ) 

Nation. 96:433-4. My. i, '13. Another labor dispute settled. 

Nation. 103:145. Ag. '17, '16. Experiments in industrial arbi- 
tration. 

Nation. 103:184. Ag. 24, '16. Railway strikes. 

Nation. 103:479. N. 23, '16. Classes and the public. 

Nation. 103:550. D. 14, '16. (editorial). 

Nation. 104:121-2. F. i, '17. The President and the railways. 

Nation. 104:179-80. F. 15, '17. Railways and strikes. 

Nation. 110:755-7. Je. 5, '20. Henry Allen's industrial cou^t.'^ 
Frank P. Walsh. J 



BIBLIOGRAPHY li 

National Review. 30 : 360-70. N. '97. Working of compulsory ) 
arbitration in labor disputes. W. Pember Reeves. 

National Reviev\^. 39 : 880-96. Ag. '02. Industrial arbitration act 
of New South Wales. B. R. Wise. 

National Review. 54 : 306. O. '09. Canadian experiment. F. A. 
Acland. 

National Review. 59:296-303. Ap. '12. Strikes and the Australian 
remedy. 

National Review. 59:1030-5. Ag. '12. The Australian remedy. 
P. Airey. 

New Republic. 4:40-2. Ag. 14, '15. Arbitrated strike. F. Hack- 
ett. 

New Republic. 7: 12-13. My. 6, '16. To prevent industrial 
war. William Z. Ripley. 

New RepubHc. 8:222-3. S. 30, '16. Against compulsory ar-) 
bitration. G. P. West. 

New Republic. 8: 315-16. O. 28, '16. The ignorant public, j 

New Republic. 9:315-17. Ja 20, '17. Beyond arbitration. 

New Republic. 14: 314-15. Ap. 13, '18. National labor policy. 

New Republic. 21:155-7. Ja. 7, '20. To avert or postpone 
industrial conflicts. 

New Republic. 22: 179-82. Ap. 7, '20. The president's in- 
dustrial conference. Felix Frankfurter. 

Nineteenth Century. 27:987-1000. Je. '90. Labor disputes 
and the Chamber of Commerce. S. B. Boulton. 

Nineteenth Century. 40: 743-S8. N. '96. Arbitration and 
labor disputes. Sidney and Beatrice Webb. 

Nineteenth Century. 52:393-9- S. '02. Conditions of labor 
in New Zealand. Tom Mann. 

Nineteenth Century. 67:37-47. Ja. '10. General strike: its 
consequences and a remedy. Bernard C. Malloy. 

North American Review. 142:502-6. My. '86. Strikes and 
arbitration. T. V. Powderly. 

North American Review. 143:317-28. O. '86. Arbitration. 
Richard T. Ely. 

North American Review. 155:370-5- S. '92. A knight of la- 
bor's view. T. V. Powderly. 

North American Review. 160:371-4. Mr. '95. How to pre- 
vent strikes and lockouts. Stockton Bates. 

North American Review. 174: 175-81. F. '02. Conference for ) 
industrial peace. Oscar S. Straus. ^ 



lii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

North American Review. 175:91-8. Jl. '02. Strikes and the. 

public welfare. John Handiboe. 
North American Review. 175:597-606. N. '02. CompulsoryN 
arbitration: a half-way house to socialism. J. A. Hobson*/ 
North American Review. 101:644-51. My. '10. Right to 

strike: its limitations. J. J. Feely. 
Outlook. 56: 1 15-18. My. 8, '87. Arbitration and conciliation 

practically applied. H. Oscar Cole. 
Outlook. 63:877-9. D. 9, '99. Visit to the compulsory arbi- 
tration court of New Zealand. H. D. Lloyd. 
Outlook. 68:946-8. Ag. 24, '01. Self enforced arbitration. 
Outlook. T2: 10-12. S. 6, '02. Arbitrate the arbitrable points. 
Abram S. Hewitt. . 

Outlook. 72:235-6. O. 4, '02. Compulsory arbitration dis-^ 

cussed. 
Outlook. 72:914-15. D. 20, '02. Civic federation discussion. 

G. C. Sykes. 
Outlook. 74:392-3. Je. 13, '03. Industrial war and peace. 
Outlook. 74:915. Ag. 15, '03. Resisting industrial arbitra- 
tion. 
Outlook. 80: 671-6. Jl, 15, '05. An experiment in industrial 

harmony. Frank Parsons. 
Outlook. 83:261-3. Je. 2, '06. Settlement of labor disputes. 
Outlook. 83:271-3. Je. 2, '06. Compulsory investigation of 

labor disputes. Everett P. Wheeler. 
Outlook. 86:88-9. My. 18, '07. Industrial war. 
Outlook. 86:542-4. Jl. 13, '07. Industrial mediaevalism. 
Outlook. 86:841-2. Ag. 24, '07. Are strikes worth while? 
Outlook. 88:8-9. Ja. 4. '08. Conciliation vs. strikes. 
Outlook. 88:32-7. Ja. 4, "08. Canadian experiment in indus- 
trial peace. O. D. Skelton. 
Outlook. 88: 567. Mr. 7, '08. Conciliation the remedy. 
Outlook. 89:967. Ag. 29, '08. Canadian Pacific strike. 
Outlook. 90:828-32. D. T2, '08. How strikes are settled in 

New Zealand. O. L. Triggs. 
Outlook. 92: 779-80. Jl. 31, '09. Press steel car strike. 
*Oullook. 94:517-18. Mr. 5, '10. War on the people. 
Outlook. 94: 526-30. Wx. 5, '10. Land without strikes. P, 

Kennaday. 
♦Outlook. 94:648-9. Mr. 26, '10. Measure to prevent 
strikes. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY liii 

tOutlook. 94: 653-4. Mr. 26, '10. Way to peace. s 

Outlook. 94: 774-6. Ap 2, '10. Why labor arbitration hasy 
failed. Henry White. 

Outlook. 95:854-5. Ag. 20, '10. End of the grand trunk 
strike. 

Outlook. 96: 507-13. O. 29, '10. Mackenzie King and Cana- 
dian labor troubles. Elmer E. Ferris. 

Outlook. 97:247-9. F. 4, '11. M. Briand's plan. 

Outlook. 101:5-6. My. 4, '12. Mediation in labor disputes. 

Outlook. 102:752-7. D. 7, '12. The railway arbitration, a re- 
view. 

Outlook. 103:463-4. Mr. I, '13. A strike averted (ed.) 

Outlook. 104:637-8. Jl. 26, '13. The railway arbitration. 

Outlook. 113:582-4. Jl. 12, '16. A tribal war. 

Outlook. 114:56-8. S. 13, '16. The strike and after. 

Outlook. 114: 121-3. S. 20, '16. Can strikes be prevented. 

Outlook. 114:256-65. O. 4, '16. Strikes and the Canadian law. 

Outlook. 114:714-15. N. 29, '16. Time to act. 

*Outlook. 114:782-3. D. 13, '16. The railway situation and 
the President. 

Outlook. 115:603-4. Ap. 4, '17. Dangerous tendencies of or- 
ganized labor. 

Outlook. 117:306-7. O. 24, '17. Industrial peace by miracle. 
Paul W. Brown. ^ 

Outlook. 124 : 644-50. Ap. 14, '20. The path to industrial peace./ 
Frederick M. Davenport. 

*Outlook. 125: 12. My. 5, '20. Labor and the open shop (ed- 
itorial). .^ 

Outlook. 125 : 58. My. 12, '20. The courts uphold Governor j 
Allen. 

Political Science Quarterly. 17:553-67. D. '02. Is authoritative 
arbitration inevitable? John B. Clark. 

Political Science Quarterly. 18:112-40. Mr. '03. State arbitra- 
tion and the minimum wage in Australasia. Henry W. 
Macrosty. 

Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 7: 1-188. Ja. 

'i7- 

p. 1-9. American experience in settlement of disputes. William L. 
Chambers. 

p. 10-18. The Canadian Industrial Disputes Act. Victor S. Clark, 
tp. 19-30. The Australian system of compulsory arbitration. Mathew 
B. Hammond. 

*p. 36-44. Objections of labor to compulsory arbitration. W. S. 
Carter. 



liv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

p. 44-80. Constitutional aspects of compulsory arbitration. Thomas 
I. Parkinson. 

*p. 81-7. Discussions of trade unions and compulsory arbitration. 

p. 94-107. The Erdman, Newlands, and Adamson Acts. David A. 
McCabe. 

p. 165-9. Arbitration of recent labor disputes. Oscar S. Straus. 

Public. 22:1108. N. 29 '19. Compulsory investigation. 

Public Opinion. 17:832. N. 29, '94. Arbitration congress at 
Chicago. 

Public Opinion. 17:863. D. 6, '94. Carroll D. Wright on com- 
pulsory arbitration. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics, i : 86-91. O. '86. Legislation 
for labor arbitration. H. M. Williams. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics, i : 487-97. Jl. '87. Action 
under the labor arbitration act. Edward Cummings. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 9:353-71- Jl- '95- Industrial 
arbitration in the United Slates. Edward Cummings. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 10:407. Jl. '96. Industrial 
arbitration : Its methods and its limitations. S. N. D. North. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 12 : 468-70. Jl. '98. Act for 
arbitration of controversies between railways and their em- 
ployees. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 15:403-6. My. '01. Arbitra- 
tion and conciliation in France. William F. Willoughby. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 17:614-42. Ag. '03. Report 
of the Victorian industrial commission. A. D. Weber. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 24:561. My. '10. Recent 
changes in Australasian laws against strikes. V. S. Clark. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 24:660-712. Ag. '10. Com- 
pulsory arbitration in New Zealand. James E. Le Rossignol 
and William D. Stewart. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 27 : 263-94. F- 'i3- The 
locomotive engineers' arbitration : Its antecedents and its 
outcome. William J. Cunningham. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 28:360-72. F. '14. Media- 
tion and arbitration of railroad wage controversies; A year's 
developments. Fred W. Powell. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 29:98-148. N. '14. Wages 
boards in Australia. M. B. Hammond. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 29:326-61. F. '15. Wage 
boards in Australia. M. B. Hammond. 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 29:563-630. My. '15. Wages 
boards in Australia. M. B. Hammond. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Iv 

Quarterly Journal of Economics. 31 : 404-46. My '17. Regula- 
tion of wages in New Zealand. M. B. Hammond. 

Railway Age Gazette. 49:192-3. Jl. 29, '10. The right to strike, 
its limitations. Joseph J. Feely. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:820-1. Ap. 7, '11. President Delano 
on arbitration of railway labor disputes. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:825-6. Ap. 7, '11. President Delano 
on the railway labor situation. F. A. Delano. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:934-5. Ap. 21, '11. Arbitration of 
railway labor disputes. P. H. Morrissey. 

Railv/ay Age Gazette. 50:979-80. Ap. 28, '11. Arbitration of 
labor disputes. W. S. Carter. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:1096-7. My. 12, '11. Arbitration of 
railway labor disputes. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:1098-9. My. 12, '11. Another letter 
from Mr. Delano on the arbitration of labor disputes. 
F. A. Delano. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:1099-1100. My 12, '11. Railway 
labor situation. 

Railway Age Gazette. 50:1235-6. Je. 2, '11. Arbitration of 
railway labor disputes. F. O. Melcher. 

Railway Age Gazette. 54:762-5. Mr. 28, '13. Arbitration of 
the firemen's wage controversy. 

Railway Age Gazette. 58" 929-32. Ap. 30, '15. Public regula- 
tion of wages of railway employees. Frank H. Dixon. 

Railway Age Gazette. 58:962-5. My. 7, '15. ArbitrationN 
award in enginemen's wage controversy. 

Railway Age Gazette. 61:323. Ag. 25, '16. A suggestion for 
arbitration. 

Railway Age Gazette. 61: 1027. D- 8, '16. Involuntary servi-j 
tude and railroad strikes. 

Railway Age Gazette. 61:1037-9. D. 8, '16. President Wil- 
son urges law to prevent strikes. 

Railway Age. 67 : 212-14. Ag. i, '19. Bi-partisan labor boards./ 
W. N. Doak. 

Railway Review. 56:636-7. My. 8, '15. Mr. Kruttschmitt 
sets forth his views on industrial mediation and concilia- 
tion. 

Railway Review. 58:138. Ja. 22, '16. Strikes and the Ca- 
nadian law. 



Ivi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

/ 

♦Reconstruction. 2:24-6. Ja. '20. Mr. Wilson asks for com- 
pulsory arbitration. Here is Australia's experience. W. 
Francis Ahearn. 

♦Reconstruction. 2: 150-2. Ap. '20. Compulsory arbitration 
the next battle prize, — why it failed in New Zealand. 
Charles Edward Russell. 

Review of Reviews. 6: 168-74. S. '92. Strikes and their reme- 
dies: A report from the Antipodes on conciliation and 
arbitration. 

Review of Reviews. 10: 178-84. Ag. '94. Labor troubles: 
Hints of new remedies from the Antipodes. W. P. Reeves. 

Review of Reviews. 16: 735-6. D. '97. Compulsory arbitra- 
tion in labor disputes: How it works in New Zealand. 

Review of Reviews. 23:328-33. Mr. '01. New way of set- 
tling labor disputes. John R. Commons. 

Review of Reviews. 29:622-3. My. '04. Labor arbitration 
law in New South Wales. 

Review of Reviews. 37: loo-i. Ja. '08. Industrial peace legi.s- 
lation in Canada. 

Review of Reviews. 37:746-7. Je. '08. State intervention in 
labor wars. . 

Review of Reviews. 44:477-80. O. '11. Industrial court3._j 
Helen L. Sumner. 

Review of Reviews. 45:322-5. Mr. '12. A preventive of 
strikes — work of the anthracite conciliation board. Louis 
Graves. 

IReview of Reviews. 46:367-8. S. '12. Doubtful efficacy of 
the Australian remedy for strikes. 
Review of an article in the National Review (London), by P. Airey. 

♦Review of Reviews. 48: 144-6. Ag. '13. A threatened rail- 
road strike. 

Review of Reviews. 54:394-5- O. '16. Norway adopts com- 
pulsory arbitration. 

♦Review of Reviews. 55: 189-90. F. '17. The Canadian com- 
pulsory investigation act. Ralph M. Easley. 

IReview of Reviews. 55:190-2. F. '17. Compulsory arbitra- 
tion in railroad disputes. Albert Chandler. 

Review of Reviews. 61:292-4. Mr. '20. Governor Allen's / 
solution. Edna O. Whitcomb. 

Review of Reviews. 61: 294. Mr. '20. The court of industrial j 
relations. J 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ivii 



,) 



Review of Reviews. 6i : 597-602. Je. '20. Liberty and law 
Kansas. Henry J. Allen. 

Saturday Evening Post. Je. 6, '12. Compulsory arbitration. \ 

'"Saturday Evening Post. 192:6-7, 72, 75. Mr. 6, '20. A substi-i 
tute for strikes. Gov. Henry J. Allen. 

Saturday Review. 74: 556-7. N. 12, '92. Industrial arbitra- 
tion. 

Saturday Review. 95: 160-1. F. 7, '03. Labor and compul- 
sion. 

*Scribner's Magazine. 61:306-14. Mr. '17. Government pre- 
vention of railroad strikes. Samuel O. Dunn. 

^Seamen's Journal. 33:1-2. Ap. 21, '20. No compulsory/ 
arbitration. Victor A. Olander. 

Sunset. 35:856. N. '15. Colorado pacifists experiment. 

Sunset. 35: 1071-82. D. '15. Australia, the social melting pot, 
Edward F. Adams. 

Survey. 22:844-86. S. 25, '09. One way to settle labor 
troubles. Elizabeth G. Evans. 

Survey. 27: 1936-9. Mr. 16, '12. State intervention in strikes, 
Paul Kennaday. 

Survey. 28: 188-92. My. 4, '12. A promising foundation for ) 
industrial peace. Allan T. Burns. 

Survey. 28:399-403. Je i, '12. Canadian industrial disputes 
act. Ethelbert Stewart. 

Survey. 28:684-5. Ag. 31, '12. A new engine for concilia- 
tion. Henry Sterling. 

Survey. 29: 743-6. Mr. i, '13. Staving off the firemen's strike. 

Survey. 30:429. Je. 28, '13. A bill to end railroad strikes. 

Survey. 32: 71+85-6. Ap. 18, '14. The third man and his part ^ 
in industrial disputes. John A. Fitch. ^ 

Survey. 32:455-8. Ag. i, '14. SettHng labor disputes in Aus- 
tralia. Mary Chamberlain. 

Survey. 34:280. Je. 26 '15. Arbitration of Chicago's street 
railway strike. 

Survey. 35: 398. Ja. i, '16. Mediation and arbitration. John 
A. Fitch. 

Survey. 36:623-8. S. 23, '16. The fundamental principle of 

arbitration. John A. Fitch. 
Survey. 37:201-2. N. 25, '16. Capital and labor on arbitra- ) 

tion. / 



Iviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Survey. 37:254. D. 2, '16. Compulsion in Australia and Can- 
ada. 

Survey. 37:256-8. D. 2, '16. A league to enforce industrial 
peace. 

tSurvey. 37:274. D. 9, '16. The President on labor disputes. 

Survey. 37:477-82. Ja. 27, '17. Involuntary servitude and the\ 
right to strike. John A. Fitch. -^ 

tSurvey. 37:496. Ja. 27, '17. Oscar Straus's plan to prevent 
strikes. 

Survey. 37: 737-8. Mr. 31, '17. The supreme court on strikes^ 
John A. Fitch. 

*Survey. 37: 746-54. Mr. 31, '17. Nine years of the Canadian 
act. The experience with compulsory investigation and 
its application to the United States. Ben M. Selekman. 

tSurvey. 37:754-9+764-5. Mr. 31, '17. The Canadian Disputes 
Act. A symposium. John R. Commons, Charles W. ' 
Eliot, J. E. Williams, William O. Thompson, Jamesy 
O'Connell, James C. Watters, H. R. Tcrwne, Harris Wein- 
stock, Elisha Lee. 

tSurvey. 38:244-5. Je. 9, '17. Secretary Wilson's plan to 
prevent strikes. 

Survey. 42: 192-5. My 3, '19. The war labor board, a war- \ 
time experiment with compulsory arbitration. John K/ 
Fitch. 

*Survey. 42:399-401. Je. 7, '19. The Australian system of 
dealing with labor disputes. George Beebe. 

Survey. 43:339-41- Ja. 3, '20. Plan of the President's indus- 
trial conference for boards of inquiry and adjustment. 

Survey. 43:424-32, Ja. 17 '20. Proposed industrial plan: a 
symposium of criticism of the President's conference re- 
port. 

Survey. 43: 819-34. Mr. 27, '20. Report of the industrial con- 
ference. [The report reprinted in full] 

♦Survey. 44: 7-8+48. Ap. 3, '20. Industrial peace by law— J 
the Kansas way. John A. Fitch. 

System. 37:739-41, 861-3. Ap. '20. How Cedar Rapids ban- 
ished strikes. Alfred Pittman. 

Textile World Journal. 53:93-5, 166. My. 25, '18. Arbitra- 
tion — its uses and benefits. Henry P. Molloy. 

Unpopular Review. 9:21-38. Ja. '18. Industrial peace and 
world peace. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Hx 

Westminster Review. IS9: 18-23. Ja. '03. How shall labor and 
capital be reconciled? Charles F. Adams. 

Westminster Review. 159:24-8. Ja. '03. Country without 
strikes. Alice Henry. 

Westminster Review. 163:307-13. Mr. '05. Arbitration and 
government employees. S. W. Belderson. 

World Today. 3:2153-5. D. '02. Arbitration of labor dis- 
putes. W. W. Willoughby. 

World Today. 13:1057-9. O. '07. Strike in New Zealand. 
James E. Le Rossignol. 

World's Work. 3:1781-3. F. '02. Successful prevention of 
strikes. Hugh H. Lusk. 

World's Work. 5:2789-90. N. '02. Can arbitration in labor J 
troubles be eflfective? 

World's Work. 5:2856. D. '02. Means to effective arbitra- 
tion. Frederick W. Job. 

World's Work. 26:438-44. Ag. '13. How Canada prevents 
strikes. W. L. Mackenzie King. 

World's Work. 31:363-5. Mr. '16. Labor and capital after 
the war. E. T. Good. 

World's Work. 34: 15-17. My '17. Way to end railroad 
strikes. 

*World's Work. 39: 531-2. Ap. '20. Striking at public neces- 
sities. 

* World's Work. 39:547-8. Ap. '20. The new railroad law. 
Ray Morris. 

Yale Review. 3:376-407. F. '95. Industrial conciliation and 
arbitration in Europe and Australasia. E. R. L. Gould. 

Yale Review. 11:225-8. N. '02. Work of the industrial com- 
mission: The hazards of arbitration. 

Yale Review. 19:32-54. My. '10. Victorian wages boards 
and the New Zealand conciliation arbitration act. Paul 
Kennaday. 

Government Publications 

United States Publications 

♦Address of the President [Wilson]. Ag. 29, '16. Pamphlet, 
also printed as House Document 1340, ist session, 64th Con- 
gress, and in Congressional Record, Vol. 53, Part 13, 
p. 13335-7 and 13361-3. 



Ix BIBLIOGRAPHY 

♦Address of the President [Wilson]. D. 5, '16. Pamphlet, also 

in Congressional Record. D. 5, '16. 
Annual message of the President [Wilson]. D. 2, 1919. 

Pamphlet, also in the Congressional Record. 
Annual reports. Commissioner of mediation and conciliation. 
Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor. 

Published bimonthly from 1896 until 1912. 

^ *Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. No. 233 Jl. '18. 
Operation of the industrial disputes investigation act of Can- 
ada. Benjamin M. Squires. 

Congressional Record. Vol. 42. Part 8. p. 299-304 of Appendix. 
60th Congress, ist Session, My. 26, '08. Investigation of con- 
troversies between capital and labor by commissions ap- 
pointed by the President. Speech of Hon. William H. Ryan, 
giving letters from various labor leaders. 

Congressional Record. Vol. 43. Part i. p. 114-34. 6oth Con- 
gress, 2d Session. D. 10, '08. Debate on H. R. 15447. "To 
provide for the investigation of controversies affecting inter- 
state commerce and for other purposes." 

Congressional Record. Ja. 22, '17. Compulsory arbitration. 
William H. Coleman. 

* Congressional Record. D. '19 and Ja. '20. Numerous 
speeches, chiefly in the Senate during December. 

Consular Reports. 

65:110-14. '01. Labor legislation in New Zealand. Frank 

Dillingham. 
75 : 526. '04. .Arbitration in New South Wales. Orlando H. 
Baker. 

Hearings before the House Sub-Committee on Labor, March 
16 to April 13, 1904, on H. R. 9491 to create a national ar- 
bitration tribunal and to define the duties and powers of 
the same. i47p. 1904. 

Hearings before the Senate Committee on education and labor, 
April 7, 1904, on S. 3259 to create a national arbitration 
tribunal and to define the duties and powers of the same. 
4op. 1904. 

♦Hearing before the Senate Committee on interstate commerce. 
August 31, 1916 (64th Congress. 1st Session), on proposed 
bills, in connection with legislation relative to the threatened 
strike of railway employees. I57p. 

Also printed as Senate Document S49- 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixi 

Hearing before the Senate Committee on interstate commerce 
January 2, 1917. Government investigation of railway dis- 
putes. 294p. 

Hearing before the House Committee on interstate and foreign 
commerce on H. R. 19730, providing for compulsory media- 
tion in railway disputes, January 17, 19, and 23, 1917. 242P. 

Hearing before the Senate Committee on interstate commerce 
on the extension of time for relinquishment by the govern- 
ment of railroads to corporate ownership and control. 3 vols. 
1919. 

Hearing before the Senate Committee on interstate commerce 
on S. 2906. 1919. 146P. 

Hearing before the House Committee on interstate and foreign 
commerce, July 15 to October 4, 1919, on the return of rail- 
roads to private ownership 1919. 17 parts. 

House Document 853, 62d Congress. 2d Session, Je. 7, '12. 
Mediation, conciliation and arbitration. 

House Report 8077, 59th Congress, 2d Session. F. 25, '07. In- 
vestigations of controversies affecting interstate commerce. 
Includes "Investigation and publicity as opposed to compulsory arbi- 
tration," by Charles Francis Adams. 

House Report 621, 60th Congress, ist Session. F. 3, '08. In- 
vestigation of controversies affecting interstate commerce. 
Also includes "Investigation and publicity as opposed to compulsory 

arbitration," by Charles Francis Adams. 

House Report 853, 62d Congress, 2d Session. Je. 7, '12. Media- 
tion, conciliation and arbitration. 
Monthly review of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

1 : 14-15. Ag. '15. Compulsory arbitration in Denmark. 

1 : 51. Ag. '15. Annual arbitration reports. (Australia) 

I : loo-i. O. '15. New Zealand awards. 

I : 62. N. '15. Agencies of mediation, investigation, and 
arbitration. 

1 : 81-3. N. '15. Industrial arbitration in Norv/ay. 

1 : 10-12. D. '15. The compulsory industrial disputes investi- 
gation act of Colorado. 

2 : 23-8. Ja. '16. The Canadian industrial disputes investiga- 
tion act. 

2:89-110. F. '16. Industrial peace in Australia through 
minimum wage and arbitration. Henry B. Higgins. 

3 : 255-62. Ag. '16. Arbitration and conciliation in Austra- 
lasia. Mary T. Rankin. 



Ixii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

3 : 353-9- S. 'i6. Minimum wage legislation in Australasia. 
Paul S. Collier. 

3:360-1. S. '16. Compulsory arbitration in Norway. 

3 • 430-3. O. '16. Arbitration of railroad labor disputes. 

3 ; 608-9. N. '16. Proposed legislation in Sweden for the 
settlement of industrial disputes. 

3 : 716-9. D. '16. Canadian industrial disputes investigation 
act in operation. 

*4: 11-19. Ja. '17. Industrial conciliation and anti-strike legis- 
lation relating to public utilities in various countries. 

4:19-25. Ja. '17. Conference on labor disputes and public 
service corporations. 

4:239-40. F. '17. Laws of various countries for the adjust- 
ment of disputes between railroads and their employes. 

4:360-5. Mr. '17. Compulsory arbitration and minimum 
wage in munitions industries in France. 

4:697-701. My. '17. Canadian industrial disputes investiga- 
tion act in operation. 

4 : 912. Je. '17. Extension of application of Canadian in- 
dustrial disputes investigation act, 1907. 

ts : 413-23. S. '17. The industrial disputes investigation act. 
Benjamin M. Squires. 

5 : 525-7. S. '17. Compulsory work laws and laws to pre- 
vent interference with employment. 

7 : 181-4. Jl. '18. Industrial arbitration act of New South 
Wales. 

*7: 457-60. Ag. '18. Conciliation and arbitration in Great 
Britain. 

7: 1438-9. N. '18. Provision to prevent strikes and lockouts 
in Minnesota during the war. 

7:1853-4. D. '18. Arbitration in shipbuilding dispute in 
Australia. 

8:588-90. F. '19. Compulsory arbitration in Great Britain 
during the war. 
^ 8: 1758-65. Je '19. Industrial peace in Australia through 
minimum wage and arbitration. 

♦9:277. Jl. '19. Compulsory arbitration in Norway. 

10:337-45. F. '20. Labor, its grievances, protests, and de- 
mands. 

10 : 808-9. Mr. '20. Kansas court of industrial relations. 

♦10:810-11. Mr. '20. Colorado industrial commission. 



■^ 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixiii 

lo : 863-70. Ap. '20. Report of the President's Industrial 

conference 
10:880-7. Ap. '20. Analysis of labor provisions of the new 

transportation act. 
10: 1062-4. Ap. '20. Provisions for dealing with labor dis- 
putes in Great Britain during the war. 
10: J 126-8. My. '20. The Kansas court of industrial rela- j 
tions. 
\/ 10 : 1290-2. My. '20. Conciliation and arbitration in New 
Zealand. 
(In the Monthly Review are also numerous _ articles on strikes, trade 
agreements and on the mediation and conciliation work of the Federal 
Government.) 

National war labor board. The aims and purposes of the Na- 
tional war labor board. I5p. 1918. 

New Zealand industrial conciliation and arbitration law. De- 
partment of labor, igoo. 

Railway strikes and lockouts. A study of arbitration and con- 
ciliation laws of the principal countries of the world, pro- 
viding machinery for the peaceful adjustment of disputes 
between railroads and their employees, and laws of certain 
countries for the prevention of strikes. U. S. Board of 
Mediation and Conciliation. 367P. 1916. House Document 
21 17, 64th Congress 2d Session. N. i, '16. 

Report. Commission on industrial relations, 1916. 

Report of the industrial commission. 1900-1902. 

♦Report on the anthracite coal strike (May-October, 1902). 
1903. 

Report of the board of mediation and conciliation, 1913- 
1917- 30p. 1918. 

tReport of the [second] industrial conference called by the 
President [Wilson] Mar. 6, 1920. 
Reprinted in full in Survey 43:819-34. Mr. 27, 20. 

Senate Document 493, 64th Congress, ist Session. Railroad 
labor arbitration : Report of U. S. board of mediation 
and conciliation on the effects of arbitration proceeding 
upon rates of pay and working conditions of railroad em- 
ployes. 1916. 

Senate Document. 650, 64th Congress, 2d session, Transla- 

• tion of the Norwegian law relating to compulsory arbitra- 
tions in labor disputes. 1917. 



Ixiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Senate Report 1025, 64th Congress, 2d session. Report of 
the committee on interstate commerce amending the act 
providing mediation, conciliation, etc. 191 7- 

Senate Report. 304, 66th Congress, ist session. Report of 
the committee on interstate commerce. November 10, 
1919. I7P. 

*Text of Canadian industrial disputes investigation act and 
summary of industrial conciliation and anti-strike legisla- 
tion relating to public utilities of various countries. Bu- 
reau of labor statistics. 2ip. 1917. 

State Publications 

California. Arbitration in wage and other disputes between 
capital and labor. Tenth biennial report of the bureau of 
labor statistics. 1901-1902. 

Colorado. Reports of the industrial commission of Colorado. 
1916 to date. 

Georgia. Message of Gov. Joseph M. Brown. June 25, 1913. 

*Kansas. Message of Gov. Henry J. Allen. January 5, 1920. 

Kansas. The Kansas court of industrial relations. Kansas 
state printing plant. Topeka. 1920. I4p. 
Text of the law. 

Maryland. Compulsory arbitration. Fifth annual report of 
the bureau of labor statistics. 1896. p. 184-202. 

Massachusetts. Compulsory arbitration in New South \\ales. 
Labor Bulletin. 1902. No. 21. p. 26. 

Massachusetts. Compulsory arbitration in New Zealand. La- 
bor Bulletin. 1901. No. 2. p. 128. 

Massachusetts. Recent cases under the Canadian industrial dis- 
putes investigation act. Labor Bulletin. 13 : 62-5. F. '08. 

Minnesota. Views of Governor Lind on compulsory arbitration. 
Seventh biennial report of the Bureau of Labor. igoo. 
P- 323-4- 

Nebraska. New Zealand law relating to arbitration and con- 
ciliation. Seventh biennial report of the Bureau of Labor 
and Industrial Statistics. 1900. p. 459-96. 

New York. Compulsory arbitration in New Zealand. Bulletin 
of Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1899. i : 177. 

New York. Desirability of compulsory arbitration between cor- 
porations and employees. Governor's message. 1891. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixv 

New York. New Zealand arbitration law. Bulletin of Bureau 
of Labor Statistics. 1903. 5 : 346. 

New York. Working of the New Zealand compulsory arbitra- 
tion law. Board of mediation and arbitration, fifteenth an- 
nual report. 1901. p. 381. 

New York. Public service commission, First district. Proposed 
plan to provide for fair and reasonable wages and working 
conditions and to prevent interruption of the service on 
street railroads, etc. 1917. 

Virginia. New Zealand law relating to arbitration and concilia- 
tion. Third annual report. Bureau of Labor and Industrial 
Statistics. 1900. p. 219-241. 

Decisions of the Courts 

Wilson vs. New. 243 U. S. 332. 

In this case the United States Supreme Court, with four justices 
dissenting, held that Congress has "authority under the circumstances 
[threat of a railway strike] to compulsorily arbitrate the dispute be- 
tween the parties by establishing as to the subject matter of that dispute 
a legislative standard of wages operative and binding as a matter of 
law upon the parties, — a power none the less efficaciously exerted because 
exercised by_ direct legislative act instead of by the enactment of other 
and appropriate means." 

Canadian Publications 

^Annual reports of the Registrar of boards of conciliation and 
investigation of the proceedings under the industrial disputes 
investigation act of 1907. 

Labor Gazette, [Monthly]. Department of Labor, Ottawa. 

Contains many articles on the operation of the Canadian Industrial 
Disputes Investigation Act. 



Industrial Warfare 

The literature on strikes, lockouts, boycotting, blacklisting, intimidation, 
sabotage, violence^ deportation, strike-breaking, picketing, and the other 
phases of industrial warfare is now so voluminous that only a limited 
bibliography can be given here. Further references may be found in 
the Readers' Guide, Public Affairs Information Service, and the bib- 
liographies mentioned below. 

Bibliographies 

fBureau of Railway Economics Library. (6oi-i3th St. N. W., 
Washington, D. C.) List of references on the right to 
strike. Compiled by Mary B. Ladd. Pamphlet. i6p. Re- 
print from Special Libraries, December, 1919. 



Ixvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Library of Congress. Select list of books -with references to 
periodicals on labor, particularly relating to strikes. Com- 
piled by A. P. C. Griffin. 1903. 

Review, i : 370+372. S. 6, '19. 

Books and Pamphlets 

*Adams, Thomas S., and Sumner, Helen L. Labor problems. 
Macmillan. 191 1. 

Chap. VI. Strikes and boycotts. 

♦Bliss, W. D. P. New encyclopedia of social reform. Funk & 
Wagnalls. 1908. 

p. 1167-72. Strikes and lockouts. 
p. 127. Boycotting. 
p. 119-20. Blacklist. 

Bolen, G. L. Getting a living. Macmillan. 1903. 

Chap. IX. Strikes, lockouts and boycotts. 
Chap. X. Questionable policies of trade unions. 

Brissenden, Paul F. The I. W. W., a study of American syn- 
dicalism. Longmans, Green & Co. 1919. 

Buchanan, J. R. Story of the labor agitator. Outlook Co. 1903. 

Burns, W. J. The masked war. 1910. 

Carlton, Frank T. The history and problems of organized labor. 
D. C. Heath. 191 1. 

Chap. VII. p. 157-89- Coercive methods. 

Cleveland, Grover. The government in the Chicago strike of 
1894. Princeton university press. 1913. 

Cohen, Julius H. Law and order in industry. Macmillan. 
1916. 

Commons, John R. et al. History of labor in the United 
States. 2 vols. Macmillan. 1918. 

Crowther, Samuel. Why men strike. Doubleda}-. 1920. 

Oilman, Nicholas P. Methods of industrial peace. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin Co. 1904. 
Chap. VIII. p 240-76. Strikes and lockouts, the blacklist and the 

boycott. 

Groat, George G. An introduction to the study of grganized 
labor in America. Macmillan. 1916. 

Chap. X and XI. p. 159-203. The strike. 

♦Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History. Harpers. 
1912. 

Vol. 3. Articles on "Dynamite Outrages." 

Howell, George. Conflicts of capital and labor. Macmillan. 
1890. 

Chap. IX. p. 346-9-2- Strikes, their objects, cost and rciult*. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixvii 

Huebner, Grover G. Blacklisting. Wisconsin free library 
commission. Legislative reference dept., Comparative leg- 
islation bulletin. No. lo. Madison. 1906. 

Huebner, Grover G. Boycotting. Wisconsin free library 
commission Legislative reference dept., Comparative legis- 
lation bulletin. No. 9. Madison. 1906. 

Hungerford, Ed^rard. The railroad problem. McClurg. 1917. 

Hunter, Robert. Violence and the labor movement. Mac- 
millan. 1914. 

Laidler, Harry W. Boycotts and the labor struggle. John 
Lane Co. 1914- 

Lavasseur, P. E. American workman. Johns Hopkins 
Press. 1900. 
p. 232-75. The strike. 

League for industrial rights (formerly the American anti- 
boycott association). Strikes on public utilities and va- 
rious other pamphlets. 135 Broadway, New York City. 

McLaughlin, A. C, and Hart, A. B. Cyclopedia of Amer- 
ican government. Appleton. 1914. 
Vol. 3. p. 436-9. Strikes. 

Marot, Helen. American labor unions. Henry Holt. 1914. 
p. 200-14. Strikes and violence. 

*Mitchell, John. Organized labor. American Book and 
Bible House. 1903. 

National industrial conference board, Research report no. 3. 
Strikes in American industry in wartime (April 6 to Oct. 
6, 1917). March 1918. 2op. 

Nicholson, J. Shield, Strikes and social problems. Macmil- 
lan. 1896. 

Chap. I. p. 1-21. Strikes and a living wage. 

*Trachtenberg, Alexander. The American labor year book. 
Rand school of social science. New York. 

Vol. I. 19 16. p. 47 et seq. 

Vol. II. 1917-18. p. 70 et seq 

Vol. III. 1919-20. p. 161 et seq.; 333-5. 

Wright, Carroll D. Battles of labor. Geo. W. Jacobs Co. 
1906. 

Periodicals 

American Economic Association, Publications. 3rd series. 
7; 176-217. F. '06. Violence in labor disputes. Thomas 
S. Adams and others. 



Ixviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

American Federationist. 17:988-9. N. '10. Labor's right not 

to sell. Samuel Gompers. 
American Magazine. 72:473-82. Ag. '11. Cost of a quarrel. 

A. S. Crapsey. 
♦American Magazine. 89:9, 100, 105. F. '20. What these 

strikes cost j'ou in money. Roger W. Babson. 
American Statistical Association, Publications. 11: 169-94. 

Je. '08. Strike statistics. Ira Cross. 
Arena. 23: 194-203. F. '00. Strikes, trusts, boycotts, and the 

blacklist. F. D. Tandy. 
Atlantic Monthly. 90:656-67. O. '02. Quarter century of 

strikes. A. P. Winton. 
Cassier's Magazine. 23:727-35. Ap. '03. Echoes from the 

recent Pennsylvania coal strike. . George F. Baer. 
Century. 81:632-3. F. '11. Lawlessness in support of a 

cause. 
Columbia Law Review. 17:502-22. Je '17. Railway strikes 

and the Constitution. Arthur A. Ballantine. 
Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and 

Public Law. io:i-ii8. '98. Sympathetic strikes and sym- 
pathetic lockouts. Fred. S. Hall. 
tContemporary Review. 116:496-503. N. '19. Labor unrest 

and the need for a national ideal. B. S. Rowntree. 
Current History. 11:54-6. O. '19. The police strike in Bos- 
ton. 
Current Opinion. 66: 199-200. Mr. '19. To stop all strikes 

and save $3,000,000,000 annual industrial loss. 
Economic Journal. 19:602-9. D. '09. Swedish general strike. 

T. H. Penson. 
Electric Railway Journal. 45:1165-8. Je. 19, '15. Chicago's 

two day strike. 
Everybody's Magazine. 33: 121-3. Jl. '15. Straight stuflF about \ 

those Danbury hatters and about boycotting. -^ 

Independent. 55: 1493-7- Je. 25, '03. Sympathetic strike. J. S. 

Stevens. 
Independent. 57:376-9. Ag. 18, '04. Labor rebellion in 

Colorado. William E. Walling. 
Independent. 66: 1052-3. My. 20, '09. French postal strike. 
♦Independent. 88: 139. O. 23, '16. Where do the people come ^ 

in? y 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixix 

Independent. 98:483-5. Je. 28, '19. Where do the people come 

in when capital and labor fight it out? Elsie Gluck. 
Industrial Management. 52:433-40. Ja. '17. Intolerable burden 
and cost of needless and senseless labor strikes. F. A. Van- 
derlip and Thomas A. Edison. 
Industry, i : 5, 8-9. Mr. 15, '19. Government by capitulation. 
Johns Hopkins University Studies. 34:9-123. 1916. The con- 
trol of strikes in American trade unions. George M. Janes. 
Law and Labor, published monthly since January 1919 by the 
League for Industrial Rights. 

A monthly periodical on the law of the labor problems from the em- 
ployers' point of view. 

*Literary Digest. 42:295-6. F. 18, '11. What strikes have cost 

the miners. 
Literary Digest. 46:626. Mr. 22, '13. Making coal strikes pay. 
Literary Digest. 47:747-8. O. 25, '13. Do strikes pay? 
Literary Digest. 62:15-7. Ag. 30, '19. High cost of strikes. 
Literary Digest. 62:7-8. S. 27 '19. PoUceman's right to strike. 
Literary Digest. 63:14-5. N. 29, '19. Labor's right to strike. 
McClure's Magazine. 20 : 323-36. Ja. '03. Right to work. R. S. 

Baker. 
McClure's Magazine. 23 : 43-57- My. '04. Reign of lawless- 
ness. R. S. Baker. 
McClure's Magazine. 38:347-64. Ag. '11. The Dynamiters, a 

great case of Detective Burns. Harvey J. O'Higgins. 
Nation. 88:479-80. My. 13, '09. French state employees. 
Nation. 109:790-2. D. 20 '19. End of Boston's police strike. 

A. Warner. 
New Republic. 21 : 224-7. Ja. 21, '20. Can the strike be 

abandoned? W. Lippmann. 
North Am.erican RevieAV. 174 : 757-68. Je. '02. Strikes in the 

United States. Carroll D. Wright. 
North American Review. 181 : 603-15. O. '05. Public and the 

coal conflict. H. E. Rood. 
North American Review. 191:644-51. My. '10. The right to 

strike, its limitations. Joseph J. Feely. 
Oregon Voter. 19:301-2. N. 22, '19. The right to strike. 
Outlook. 71 :534-5. Je. 14, '02. Strikes in vital industries. 
*Outlook. 78:969-72. D. 17, '04. Violence in labor conflicts. 

Slason Thompson. 
Outlook. 81 : 1050. D. 30, '05. Russian strike and anti-strike 

measures. 



Ixx BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Outlook. 86 : 542-4. Jl. 13, '07. Industrial mediaevalism. 
Outlook. 92 : 869-70. Ag. 14, '09. Swedish strike. 
*Outlook. 94:517-18. Mr. 5, '10. War on the people. 
Outlook. 98:12-3. My. 6, '11. Murder is murder. Theodore 

Roosevelt. 
Outlook. 98:915-6. Ag. 26, '11. Sabotage. 
Outlook. 103:62-5. Ja. II, '13. Government by dynamite. 
Outlook. 107 : 67-73. My. 9, '14. The strike war in Colorado. 

W. T. Davis. 
tOutlook. 114: 147-8. S. 20, '16. Strikes and the public. Paul 

W. Brown. 
Outlook. 121 : 136-8. Ja. 22, '19. An industrial war on the pub- 
lic (editorial). 
tOutlook. 123 : 223-9. O. 29, '19. The labor crisis and the 

people. 
Outlook. 123 : 536-7. D. 24, '19. Strikes we have survived. 
Pearson's Magazine. 28: 121. O. '12. What strikes cost work- 
ers. A. L. Studer. 
Political Science Quarterly. 29 : 626-63. D. '14. The West Vir- 
ginia coal strike. Lawrence R. Lynch. 
Quarterly Review. 223 : 485-506. O. '14. Strikes from the 

workmen's point of view. 
Railway Age Gazette. 61 : 1084. D. 15, '16. The right of public 

service employes to strike. 
Review. 2:170-1. F. 21, '20. Limitation of the right to strike. 
Review of Reviews. 39 : 534. My. '09. France and organized 

labor. 
Review of Reviews. 40:481-2. O. '09. Swedish general strike. 

A danger signal. 
Review of Reviews. 49:732-4. Je. '14. Industrial war in 

Colorado. 
Review of Reviews. 60:341-3. O. '19. Boston's police strike. 
Sunset. 37:39. O. '16. The right to strike. 
Survey. 32:304-5. Je. 13, '14. The closed shop and the labor 

boycott. H. W. Laidler. 
Survey. 33 : 241-58. D. 5, '14. Law and order : The issue in 

Colorado. John A. Fitch. 
Survey. 37:737-8. Mr. 31, '17. The supreme court on strikes. 

John A. Fitch. 
Survey. 42:645-6. Ag. 2, '19. Epidemic of strikes in Chicago. 

Graham Taylor. 
Survey. 42:881-2. S. 20, '19. Boston police strike. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixxi 

Survey. 43 : 58-64. N. 8, '19. Closed towns, intimidation as it 

is practiced in the Pittsburg steel district— the contrast in 

Ohio. A. W. Shaw. 
Twentieth Century Magazine. 5 : 386. F. '12. Lawless union- 
ism. 
World's Work. 10:6199-204. My. '05. Strike breaking as a 

new occupation. Leroy Scott. 
World's Work. 25:49-61. N. '12. The battle line of labor. 

Samuel P. Orth. 
World's Work. 25:197-205. D. '12. The battle Hne of labor. 

Samuel P. Orth. 
World's Work. 25 : 275-85. Ja. '13. The battle line of labor. 

Samuel P. Orth. 
World's Work. 25:431-7. F. '13. The battle line of labor. 

Samuel P. Orth. 
World's Work. 25 : 676-9. Ap. '13. The power of the railroad 

brotherhoods. Gilson Willets. 
Yale Law Journal. 5 : 13-26. O. '94. Legal restraint of labor 

strikes. William P. Aiken. 

Government Publications 

Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor. 9: 1097-1117. No. 54. S. '04. 

Strikes and lockouts in the United States, 1881-1900. G. W. W. 
. Hanger. 

*Congressional Record. 59:1057-63 (of daily record). Ja. 5, 
'20. Letter from Samuel Gompers and a reply by Senator 
Charles S. Thomas. 

Monthly Review of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Various articles on strikes and lockouts in the United States and in 
foreign countries. 

Report, Commission on Industrial Relations. 

Report of the Industrial Commission. 1900-2. 

Report on the anthracite coal strike. (May-Oct. 1902). 1903. 

Report on the Chicago strike of June-July 1894. 

*Twenty-first Annual Report of the Commissioner of labor. 

Strikes and lockouts. 1906. 

The 3rd, 10th, i6th, and 21st Annual reports of the Commissioner 
of Labor were devoted to strikes and lockouts. Wliile the latter volume 
is for the years 190 1- 1905, it contains a summary of the entire period 
under investigation, 1881-1905. It also contains a chapter on strikes 
and lockouts in foreign countries and one on the laws of the various 
states relating to strikes, blacklisting, boycott, etc. 

♦United States. Shipping Board. Statement on the cost of 

strikes, December 6, 1919. 



COMPULSORY ARBITRATION AND 

COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION 

OF INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 

INTRODUCTION 

President McKinley once said that so long as there have 
been Capital and Labor, there have been strikes. In recent 
years, as Capital and Labor have become better organized 
and more centralized and as industry has developed and life 
become more complex, strikes have frequently been greater 
in extent, involving more workmen and causing greater loss 
to both Capital and Labor and greater inconvenience and suf- 
fering to the general public. More than this, the official sta- 
tistics compiled at Washington show that strikes and lock- 
outs are increasing. The Twenty First Annual Report of the 
L'nited States Commissioner of Labor (p. 85) says that 
voluntary arbitration has resulted in the settlement of only 
1.6 per cent of the strikes and 2.3 per cent of the lockouts 
between 1901 and 1905 inclusive. When boards of voluntary 
arbitration have offered their services to adjust differences 
between Capital and Labor, they have frequently received no 
more satisfaction than to learn that one party or the other 
either had "nothing to arbitrate," or considered their dif- 
ferences "a well established principle of human welfare, a 
principle that cannot be disputed and therefore is not prop- 
erly a matter for arbitration." Sometimes such boards have 
been further enlightened by being informed that this position 
did not mean that the party in question had "rejected the 
principle of arbitration." 

The year and a half that have elapsed since the close of 
the world war have been a period of great industrial unrest, 
world wide in extent. In Europe, America, Australia, Japan 
and elsewhere, there have been industrial wars and rumors 



2 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of war, strikes and threats of strikes. In this country there 
has been, as Senator Thomas said, a "perfect carnival of 
strikes," some extensive in scope, such as that of the coal 
miners and the steel workers, and some that were smaller 
but have caused very great inconvenience to the people of 
the community concerned, such as strikes of the street car 
men, drug clerks, telephone operators and elevator operators. 
Some strikes have effected the country at large though com- 
paratively few men went out, as was the case of the railroad 
switchmen, the expressmen, the New York printers, and the 
longshoremen. There have been some unusual strikes, such 
as that of the actors in New York City, of the clerks in the 
Chicago City Hall, of the Policemen in Boston and Cincinnati, 
and of the City Firemen in several cities. There have been 
sympathetic strikes, general strikes and outlaw strikes. In 
England there was a serious railroad strike, in Spain a 
medical strike, in France and Italy a general strike, and in 
Japan several strikes in true western style, with riots and 
sabotage. 

So great are the losses and inconveniences resulting from 
industrial warfare, so bitter are the animosities it engenders, 
and so serious the element of uncertainty it injects into busi- 
ness, that scholars and statesmen have long sought a more 
eflFicient remedy than mediation, conciliation and voluntary 
arbitration. In 1894 New Zealand adopted compulsory in- 
dustrial arbitration as a result of the strike of the Seamen's 
Union which disorganized the trade of the islands. This 
law applies only to registered unions, and there is no penalty 
for failing to register, but among the registered unions, both 
during a hearing by a Council of Conciliation or a Court of 
Arbitration, and after an award of agreement has been made, 
strikes and lockouts are illegal and may be punished by a fine. 
Even a gift of money to help the strikers is prohibited and is 
punishable in the same way. The system was soon afterwards 
adopted in the Commonwealth of Australia and in several of 
the individual states of that Commonwealth. At first it worked 
with a considerable measure of success in both countries, 
though it is true that the laws have been frequently amended 
and that the later results seem much less favorable than those of 
the earlier years. 

The Dominion of Canada under the leadership of Hon. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 3 

William L. Mackenzie King, adopted the "Industrial Disputes 
Investigation Act" in 1907, after a prolonged coal strike had 
seriously interfered with industry and public comfort and had 
directed attention to the evils of industrial warfare. Although 
this law is entitled "An Act to aid in the Prevention and Settle- 
ment of Strikes and Lockouts in Mines and Industries con- 
nected with Public Utilities", and although many of its advo- 
cates are always emphatic in stating that it is not compulsory 
arbitration, the act provides that a strike or lockout in the in- 
dustries within its scope shall be illegal until the dispute has 
been investigated and reported upon by an official board ap- 
pointed for the purpose. This law, therefore, ought to be called 
the "Compulsory Delay, Investigation, and Publicity Act," but 
this system is usually referred to "Compulsory Investigation" as 
distinguished from Compulsory Arbitration. Some of the op- 
ponents of the law in Canada call it the "Parade Act," because 
of its publicity features. 

The Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act applies 
only to mines and public utilities, including railways and ship- 
ping, but other industries may be brought within its scope by 
agreement of both parties to the dispute. Unlike the New 
Zealand law, the awards are not binding upon either party, nor 
is a strike or lockout illegal after the findings of the board have 
been published, the law leaving it to public opinion to enforce 
the awards. 

In 1910 Denmark adopted a limited form of Compulsory 
Arbitration similar to the New Zealand system. In the same 
year a similar bill was introduced in Norway. This bill was 
changed to provide the Canadian form of Compulsory Investi- 
gation and was adopted in 1915. The next year, however, a bill 
providing for a limited form of the New Zealand system was 
adopted by. Norway, but it also contained the provision that it 
should last only as long as the European war. The Canadian 
plan of Compulsory Investigation was adopted by the State of 
Colorado in 1915. The Canadian system was also adopted in 
New Zealand in 1913 to apply only to the unions which were 
not registered and therefore did not come under the Compul- 
sory Arbitration Law of 1894. In 1917 the New Zealand sys- 
tem was adopted in France by a decree of the Minister of Muni- 
tions but it applies only to those establishments that are en- 
gaged in the manufacture of "armaments, munitions, and war 
materials." 



4 COMPULSORY ARBITRATIOxN OF 

In January 1920 the Legislature of Kansas in special session 
adopted the recommendation of Governor Allen and passed the 
first Compulsory Industrial Arbitration law in America, creating 
a state Court of Industrial Relations composed of three judges 
appointed by the governor. The law does not cover all indus- 
trial disputes, but applies only to those industries declared to be 
"affected with a public use." Such industries include the manu- 
facture of food and clothing, the mining of fuel, the transporta- 
tion of food, clothing, and fuel, and all public utilities and com- 
mon carriers. The Court of Industrial Relations is given power 
to "settle and adjust all controversies," and may proceed upon its 
own initiative, or upon the complaint of either party, or of ten 
taxpayers, or of the Attorney General of the state. Strikes and 
lockouts are prohibited in industries within the scope of the act. 
In any case where production ceases the state may take over 
the industry and operate it. Any person violating the law or 
any order of the court may be punished by a fine of one thous- 
and dollars, or imprisonment in jail for one year, or both fine 
and imprisonment. Any officer of a corporation, employer of 
labor, or officer of a labor union, who uses his position to get 
others to violate the law or any order of the court may be fined 
five thousand dollars, or imprisoned in the penitentiary at hard 
labor for two years, or both such fine and imprisonment. 

In none of the above mentioned countries have strikes and 
lockouts been entirely prevented nor is it claimed by the advo- 
cates of either system that more can be done than to reduce 
industrial warfare to a minimum. While there is no "land 
without strikes," rnany pcr.sons believe that labor troubles 
have been greatly reduced under each of these systems. In 
Canada there were 222 strikes in industries within the scope 
of the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act during the first 
ten years of the law, 204 of which were illegal. The official 
figures, on the other hand, show that during the first twelve 
years of the law, ,374 applications were filed, 287 boards 
granted, and only 24 strikes "not averted or settled." In 
New Zealand there were no .strikes or lockouts during the 
first twelve years (1894-1905) of Compulsory Industrial Ar- 
bitration, but there were 169 strikes and lockouts during the 
thirteen years that followed. While strikes have occurred in 
violation of all of these laws, there have been but few 
prosecutions for such violation. This is particularly true in 
Canada. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 5 

In the United States a law providing for voluntary arbi- 
tration VN^as passed by Congress in 1888. It applied to any 
controversy between a railroad or other transportation com- 
pany engaged in interstate commerce and any class of its em- 
ployees which might "hinder, impede, obstruct, interrupt, or 
afifect such transportation of property or passengers." The 
law provided that either party might propose in writing to 
submit the differences to arbitration, and if the other party 
should accept the proposition, each side should select one 
arbitrator and the two should select a third. These three 
persons made up the Board of Arbitration. There was also 
a provision that each of the arbitrators selected by the par- 
ties should be impartial and disinterested, but no provision 
was made for selecting the third arbitrator if the two failed 
to agree upon one. A Board, once created under this law, 
had power to administer oaths, subpoena witnesses, require 
the production of records, etc. but no provision was made 
for enforcing the awards. The law also provided that in any 
controversy, when the parties might create an Arbitration 
Board, the President, of his own initiative, might select two 
Commissioners, who, with the Commissioner of Labor, 
should constitute a temporary commission, with powers 
similiar to a Board of Arbitration, for the purpose of examin- 
ing the causes of the controversy. 

No Arbitration Board was ever created under the Act 
of 1888, and only one Commission, which was appointed in 
July 1894, a month after the beginning of the strike at the 
Pullman Car shops. This Commission did not settle the 
strikes that led to its creation, but it made a recommending 
for a permanent strike commission, with more drastic pow- 
ers of investigation and recommendation. The sympathetic 
railroad strike growing out of the Pullman strike was a bitter 
and violent industrial war that interfered with the carrying 
of the mail and threatened the cities with starvation. The 
final result was the passage of the Erdman Act, approved June 
1st 1898, which superceded the act of 1888. 

The Erdman Act applied only to controversies between 
interstate carriers and those of their employes who were 
"actually engaged in train operation or train service." It 
provided for government mediation and conciliation if either 
of the parties should request it, and for arbitration if both 
parties requested and agreed to it in writing, each naming 



6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

an arbitrator, and these two selecting the third. This Board 
had power to subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, require 
the testimony of witnesses and production of books, papers, 
contracts, agreements and records. Its awards were to be 
"valid and binding" upon both parties, but no employe was 
to be "compelled to render personal service without his con- 
sent." 

No very serious railroad strike occurred on an interstate 
railroad for more than twenty years after the passage of this 
law and some people have concluded that the law was very 
successful. There was only one attempt to utilize the pro- 
visions of the Erdman Act during the first eight and a hali 
years of its existence, and this one attempt resulted in a com- 
plete failure. In the six years that followed the act was 
resorted to in about sixty cases, but in only four of these 
were the arbitration features of the law employed. A 
threatened strike of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
neers of the eastern railroads in 1912 was settled by arbitra- 
tion outside of the provisions of the Erdman Act, and the 
Board of Arbitration that settled the matter recommended 
the adoption of compulsory arbitration of the disputes be- 
tween railways and their employes. 

On July IS, 1913, the Newlands Act was adopted. This 
amends the Erdman Act which provided for a Board of 
three, one representing the employers, one of the employees, 
and a third chosen by these two. Under the Newlands Act 
the Board may consist of three or six as the interested par- 
ties may desire. If a Board of six is decided upon each of 
the parties to the controversy selects two representatives 
and these four select the remaining two. The Newlands 
Act also provides for a Board of Mediation and Conciliation, 
and this Board selects the neutral member or members of an 
Arbitration Board if the representatives of the interested 
parties fail to do so within five days where it is a Board 
of three or within fifteen days where it is to be a Board of 
six. If either party refuses to agree to arbitration, then the 
other party may apply to the Board of Mediation and Con- 
ciliation and in cases where an interruption of traffic is immi- 
nent, this Board may act on its own initiative, but in either 
case, it only acts as a Board of mediation and conciliation. 
In other words, there are no compulsory features embodied 
in the Newlands Act. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 7 

In 1916 after a strike had been voted by the employees of 

the American railroads who, refusing to arbitrate the matter, 
had made a demand for an eight hour day without any decrease 
in pay which the ijfficials of the roads had refused to grant. 
President Wilson in an address to Congress recommended the 
adoption of "A provision making illegal any railroad strike or 
lockout, prior to the investigation of the merits of the case," or, 
in other words, the adoption of the Canadian system of Com- 
pulsory Investigation as regards disputes between Railroad offi- 
cials and their employees. This recommendation the President 
"very earnestly renewed" in his annual address to Congress on 
December 5, 1916, but Congress did not enact such legislation. 

Congress did yield to the demands of the railway employees 
for an eight hour day, and passed what is known as the Adam- 
son Act, the constitutionality of which came before the Supreme 
Court in the case of Wilson vs. New, and was decided on 
March 19, 1917. (243 U.S 332). By vote of five to four the 
court held that Congress had "Authority under the circum- 
stances to compulsorily arbitrate the dispute between the parties 
by establishing as to the subject matter of that dispute a legisla- 
tive standard of wages operative and binding as a matter of 
law upon the parties, — a power none the less efficaciously ex- 
erted because exercised by direct legislative act." 

On March i, 1920 the railroads of the country were re- 
turned to their owners in accordance with the provisions of the 
Transportation Act of 1920, (the Esch-Cummins law). The 
original Cummins bill as passed by the Senate in December, 
1919 contained a provision for the Compulsory Arbitration of 
all labor disputes between the railroads and their employees, 
but the House of Representatives refused to concur in this 
provision and it was eliminated in the joint conference. The 
Transportation Act includes a plan for the. conciliation and 
arbitration of labor disputes. It provides for local Adjustment 
Boards and a national Labor Board composed of nine members 
appointed by the President subject to the approval of the Sen- 
ate. Three members of this Board represent the railway em- 
ployees and are selected by the President from a list of at least 
six names submitted to him by the representatives of the rail- 
ways in such manner as the Interstate Commerce Commission 
may prescribe. Three represent the railway owners and are 
selected in a similar manner. The other three represent the 
public and are selected by the President without previous nom- 



8 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ination. The Labor Board deals primarily with appeals from 
the decisions of local Adjustment Boards, but it also has powers 
of original initiative. Strikes are not made illegal pending an in- 
vestigation by the Labor Board or an Adjustment Board, nor is 
any award or decision of either made obligatory on the parties. 
The Labor Board, however, has full power to investigate any 
and every dispute, to compel the attendance and testimony of 
witnesses, and it can examine the books and records of the 
parties, thus assuring full publicity. 

The report of the (second) Industrial Conference called by 
the President (March 6th 1920) gives a plan designed to reduce 
to a minimum the interference with industry caused by strikes 
and labor unrest. It declares "Prevention of Disputes is worth 
more than Cure," and recommends "Employe Representation" 
saying "Employes need an established channel of expression and 
an opportunity for responsible consultation on matters which 
affect them in their relations with their employers and their 
work. There must be diffused among them a better knowledge 
of the industry as a whole and of their own relation to its suc- 
cess. Employe Representation will not only enable them better to 
advance their own interests, but will make them more definitely 
conscious of their own contribution and their own responsibili- 
ties." The report also suggests a plan of machinery to adjust 
disputes in general industry by conference, conciliation, in- 
quiry and arbitration. The plan discards compulsorj' arbitration 
and the prohibition of strikes pending an investigation, but pro- 
poses a National Industrial Board, Regional Adjustment Con- 
ferences, and Boards of Inquiry. The worst penalty suggested 
is publicity, but the report does recommend that Regional Boards 
of Inquiry be given power to subpoena witnesses, to examine 
them under oath, and to require the production of books and 
papers. 

The last forty years have witnessed fundamental changes 
in our industrial system. During the earlier part of this period 
most of our basic industries were consolidated into giant cor- 
porations. During the latter part of the period the national and 
local labor unions have merged into one giant federation. The 
American Federation of Labor was organized in 1881 (though 
not taking its present name until five years later) with about a 
quarter of a million members. By 1900 it had doubled its mem- 
bership, then having over a half million members. Its member- 
ship was tripled in the next decade, giving it over a million and 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 9 

a half in 1910. Since that time it has again doubled its member- 
ship, reporting on April 30, 1919 a membership of over three 
and a quarter millions with forty-six state federations, 8i6 city 
central bodies, iii national and international unions, and 33,852 
local unions. At the present time (May, 1920) its membership is 
over four million. 

Today both Capital and Labor are highly organized for indus- 
trial warfare. Both organized employers and employes have 
treasuries with reserve funds for war emergencies and both are 
fighting with propaganda. Thirty or forty years ago Capital 
looked with little favor upon Compulsory Arbitration, but sev- 
eral of the prominent labor leaders favored its adoption. Now 
employers are looking upon Compulsory Arbitration more favor- 
ably, but the leaders of organized labor in this country are al- 
most unanimous in their opposition both to Compulsory Ar- 
bitration and to Compulsory Investigation. They hold that 
either plan would be a violation of the rights of the working 
classes, that either plan takes away from labor its only weapon 
and leaves it unarmed to fight organized capital, and that either 
plan would produce a condition of involuntary servitude pro- 
hibited by the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitu- 
tion. They insist that the working men have a long established 
and well recognized "right to strike." 

The existence of this right was denied by representatives of 
tour large farmers organizations In a memorial drawn up on 
February 11, 1920 and addressed to Congress. These organ- 
izations were the National Grange, the American Bureau Fed- 
eration, the Cotton States Board, and the Association of State 
Farmers' Unions. The memorial says, in part, "Those who be- 
lieve labor has an inherent right to organize a strike, believe 
that such organizations have a right to starve the people of the 
cities to death on the one hand, and to destroy the property of 
the farmers on the other. No such right has ever existed and 
no such right exists now. It is economically unsound and the 
American people can and will work out some other method for 
the settlement of such controversies. No set of men has ever 
had the moral or legal right to destroy property or cause suffer- 
ing by conspiring together, and the welfare of the people must 
ever remain superior to that of any class or group of people." 

A middle ground on this point is taken by Hon. Elihu Root 
in suggesting a policy to be embodied in the Republican National 
platform, according to the World's Work (39:531.) He is 



10 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

quoted as saying "We should not attempt to take away the right 
to strike. It is labor's great protection. But we should by law 
limit the right to strike at the point where it comes in conflict 
with the communities' higher right to self protection. No man 
and no set of men can justly claim the right to undertake the 
performance of a service upon which the health and life of 
others depends, and then to abandon the service at will. The 
line between such a performance and an ordinary strike should 
be drawn by law." 

A similar statement is embodied in the "Declaration of the 
Cleveland Chamber of Commerce" (Survey 43: 749, Mr. 13 '20) 
from which we read, "The Employes' right to strike and the 
employers' right to lockout his employes are both secondary to 
the public's right to service. In essential industries, govern- 
ment services, and public utiHties prompt settlement of disputes 
should be effected by the efforts of both parties. The public's 
right to uninterrupted service during the period of settlement is 
a primary consideration." 

The "right to strike" is denied, and compulsory arbitration 
is endorsed by many of our prominent scholars and statesmen. 
Among this number are Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas, 
Ex-Gov. Joseph W. Brown of Georgia, William Allen White, 
Senator A. B. Cummins, and a majority of the Senators in the 
Sixty-sixth Congress. Compulsory Investigation has been en- 
dorsed by President Wilson, William J. Bryan, Hon. William L. 
McKenzie King, of Canada, Hon. G. D. Robertson, the Minister 
of Labor in Canada, and many others. Judge Curran of Kansas 
has said (Outlook 125:58) "The divine right to strike where it 
affects the health and welfare of tlie public must be relegated to 
the realm where the divine right of kings has been sent." 

There is one point upon which almost everybody seems to 
agree, that strikes and lockouts are a bad thing, that they cause 
losses to both antagonists as well as loss and suffering to inno- 
cent people, and are to be avoided whenever possible. While 
very few will defend modern industrial warfare, and weak is 
their attempt, yet it goes on and will go on for generations 
after this in spite of the fact that one United States Senator 
has said on the floor of the Senate [December 18, 1919] tihat he 
would give his "very soul and go down damned through all 
eternity" to "fix some scheme whereby men in their personal 
and international and industrial relations would submit to 
reason rather than passion." 

Lamar T. Beman 



PART I 
INDUSTRIAL WARFARE 



Ivlucli of the material in Part One is ex parte, the utter- 
ances of interested parties in the industrial conflict. It is 
our desire to present both sides as fully and fairly as is 
pof ible in the limited space at our command. Any debate 
or discussion of Compulsory Arbitration or Compulsory In- 
vestigation must have as a foundation a knowledge of In- 
dustrial Warfare. 



STRIKES* 



Definition 

Strikes are concerted cessations of work by wage-earners, 
designed to coerce their employers into compliance with 
their demands, during Avhich efforts are made to keep other 
workmen from filling the places temporarily vacated. The 
improvement or the maintenance of the existing conditions 
of employment is the usual question at issue in strikes, 
though many are called to secure recognition of the unions, 
and many are sympathetic strikes. The public always asso- 
ciates strikes with trade unions, but about a third of the 
strikes of the last thirty years were started by men belong- 
ing to no labor organization. Generally labor unions later 
have entered the field to direct and support these strikes of 
the unorganized. 

The strikes begun by labor organizations generally find 
their initiative in the local unions directly involved. In many 
unions the vote of more than a majority of the members of 
the locals particularly affected is required to authorize any 
strike even if not local. To secure financial support from the 
general union treasury, strikes must have the sanction, also, 
of the officers of the national organization. Only in the 
building trades do the local union officials have the power to 
call strikes on their ov.-n initiative. 

Strikes duly authorized are generally conducted under the 
direction of a representative of the national union, co-operat- 
ing with committees of the local directly involved. 

Strike Benefits 

To the men on strike, weekly payments of a certain 
amount are made, and sometimes milk, clothing and grocer- 
ies are furnished directly. Workmen not belonging to the 
union, if they join in the strike, receive the same benefits as 
do the union members. 

1 Cyclopedia of American Government, vol. 3, p. 436-8. 



14 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Unions are able to pay these strike benefits because they 
collect funds for these emergencies in times of peace, and 
during strikes, unions frequently levy special assessments 
for their support upon the members who are employed. 
Contributions are also solicited from other unions and from 
the general public. When unions can no longer financially 
support a strike, it is almost sure to collapse. 

Strike-Breakers 

In most strikes employers are not content simply to close 
their factories. To defeat the striking workmen in their de- 
mands, it is necessary to show that the factory can be 
operated without them. This necessitates getting new work- 
men, either from among the unemployed, or from profes- 
sional strike-breakers. In large cities, agencies exist which 
stand ready to supply strike-breakers, and the armed guards 
necessary for their protection. 

To the strikers it is all important that their places shall 
not be filled by other workmen. To turn back those whom 
the employer has securedi the strikers institute picketing 
(see). Peaceful picketing is frequently effective in inducing 
workmen who have been secured by the employer through 
ignorance of the existence of a strike to turnback, sometimes 
by paying their transportation expenses. 

Violence in Strikes 

When peaceful methods fail to prevent the employer's filling 
their places, strikers resort at times to acts of violence. Non- 
union workmen are threatened and even assaulted, and efforts 
are made to destroy the employer's property. In the United 
States protection to employers against acts of violence has been 
far less efficient than in Europe. Because of the political power 
of the wage-earners, local officials have sometimes been un- 
willing to prosecute strikers who violate the law. Even where 
the state militia has been called in, violence has not always been 
checked. Upon only a few occasions have federal troops fig- 
ured in strikes. 

Because of the inadequacy of police protection, employers 
frequently hire armed guards to conduct workmen to and from 
the factory to their lodging-houses, and to protect them while 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 15 

at work. Sometimes these squads have been given commissions 
as deputy sheriffs, with power to make arrests. 

Sympathetic Strikes and Boycotts 

Workmen in the same industry by continuing to work help to 
defeat the men who are out on strike. Not infrequently the 
employer transfers a part of his orders to other factories. 
Sympathetic strikes in these factories are then called by the 
union. In a sympathetic strike, strictly speaking, the sympathis- 
ing union strikes to help another union, but without a direct 
grievance or demand of its own. The sympathetic strikes of 
most common occurrence take place in the building trades. The 
members of as many as twenty unions are frequently employed 
upon the same building; only through sympathetic strikes can 
these act together to bring work to a standstill. All told, less 
than five per cent of all strikes are sympathetic. 

Labor union men in other industries seldom give aid to 
strikers through sympathetic strikes. The chief manner in 
which they aid strikes is through their refusal to purchase from 
dealers the products manufactured by the employers involved in 
the strike and by their contributions through their unions. Al- 
most all trade union boycotts have been inaugurated to assist 
strikes, but they are of real assistance only in those industries 
where a considerable portion of the product is consumed by 
union men. 

How Strikes are Ended 

Most strikes end within a comparatively short time, many 
lasting but a single day. Usually some sort of an adjustment 
is reached between the strikers and their employer, sometimes 
through reference of the disputed questions to a neutral board 
of arbitration. More frequently the adjustment is secured 
through direct negotiations between the union and the employer. 
Quite often the employer refuses to recognize any one in the 
negotiations other than his own employes. If the union, how- 
ever, is sufficiently strong, it insists that the employer shall make 
a trade agreement with it, to govern the conditions of employ- 
ment which are to prevail in the future. Observance of such 
trade agreements, since they are unenforceable at law, depends 
upon the strength of the organization on both sides. 



i6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

If the employer wins a complete victory, he refuses to recog- 
nize the strikers as a body, but usually re-employs most of 
them. The union leaders are likely not to get back their old 
positions, and may be prevented from getting work elsewhere. 

Effect of Strikes 

Of the strikes undertaken in the last thirty years, by trade 
unions, one-half have been won by laborers, and one-third by 
employers, the rest were compromised. A majority of the 
strikes not called by labor organizations, on the other hand, 
have been won by the employers. 

Strikers have always been more successful in times of 
prosperity than^ in those of depression. While demand is keen, 
employers can ill afford to have their factories closed, and at 
such times there are few unemployed to take the places of 
strikers. Slack times, on the other hand, make it difficult for 
strikers to win, for factories may be closed without much in- 
jury to the employers, and other workmen may easily be had. 

A satisfactory net balance of gains and losses sustained 
through strikes has never been struck. John Mitchell has 
computed that the average time lost through strikes does not 
amount to one day per year for all workmen. The net losses 
directly traceable to strikes are equal to three cents per year 
for each inhabitant of the county. That strikes make em- 
ployers more ready to grant the demands of the laboring men 
seems certain. For every advance in wages secured through 
strikes more than a dozen are won without them, in many cases 
out of fear of strikes. 

History of Strikes 

Not until the interests of the masters had become distinctly 
different from those of their workmen, could strikes play any 
real role in industry. In most industries this stage was not 
reached until the nineteenth century was well advanced. The 
first epidemic of strikes throughout the country occurred in 
1827-29. Prior to 1881 about 1500 strikes are known to have 
taken place. Official annual statistics since 1881 show that the 
number of strikes has been increasing, but at a less rapid rate 
than has the population. 

Statistics show, also, that the importance of wage demands 
as a cause of strikes has been slowly declining. Within the 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 17 

last decade the question of the recognition of the union and 
of union rules has been responsible for as many strikes as 
have disputes over wages. 

Strike Legislation 

During the first decades of the nineteenth century workmen 
who went out upon strikes were in some cases convicted of 
conspiracy to raise their wages, which was an offense in com- 
mon law. When juries in the thirties refused to convict, this 
form of prosecution for striking ceased. Not until after the 
Civil War, however, were statutes enacted expressly legalizing 
strikes. Only a few states ever adopted such laws ; and most 
of them applied only to strikes directly involving questions of 
wages or hours of labor. 

During the sixties most industrial states enacted laws pro- 
hibiting intimidation in labor controversies. In the eighties 
some of them made it criminal for men to participate in com- 
binations with the purpose primarily to injure employers or non- 
union workmen. At the same time few states declared boy- 
cotting to be a criminal offense. More recently Alabama and 
Colorado enacted laws making picketing illegal. 

On the other hand, a number of states have enacted lav.^s 
declaring peaceful picketing to be lawful. Maryland, California 
and Oklahoma have even gone so far as to provide that acts 
done by labor combinations shall not be deemed criminal un- 
less they are unlawful when undertaken by individuals. 

Statute law has had, however, but a slight importance in 
determining the legality of the activities of strikers. Such re- 
strictions as it has placed upon their conduct have usually been 
nothing more than restatements of the common law. The few 
laM's enacted to remove common law restrictions have been so 
construed by the courts as to render them almost meaning- 
less. 

Court Decisions 

Court decisions upon the legality of the activities of strikers 
have often been contradictory. As to combinations to strike, 
the view now accepted in perhaps the majority of jurisdictions 
is that their legality depends upon the objects they aim to ac- 
complish, and upon the means they employ to gain these ob- 
jects. It is an illegal object primarily to conduct strikes to in- 



i8 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

jure employers or non-union workmen. Illegal means are em- 
ployed in furthering a strike when resort is had to "intimida- 
tion" or "coercion." 

On passing upon the issue of fact, whether the aim of 
strikers has been primarily to advance their own interests, or 
to do injury to others, many courts have failed to discover the 
former when questions of wages or hours of labor were not 
directly involved. The bulk of authority is in favor of the 
view that strikes to gain a closed shop are unlawful. Similarly 
all forms of sympathetic strikes have been held illegal in most 
of the cases which have come up. Some decisions, on the 
other hand, hold that strikes are never illegal. 

As to what constitutes "intimidation" and "coercion," also, 
much uncertainty exists. ' All cases agree that these terms cover 
all actions which place the average person in fear of physical 
violence. Other decisions go much beyond this, and assert that 
employers or non-union workmen are "intimidated" whenever 
they are compelled to do something they did not intend to do. 
The courts defining "intimidation" in this manner usually hold 
that no picketing during strikes is ever "peaceful." The more 
generally accepted view is that picketing is lawful if not con- 
ducted in an unreasonable manner, or by an unnecessarily large 
number of men. 

The courts cannot directly prevent strikes for illegal pur- 
poses from being carried on. Under common law principles, 
and by the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, per- 
sons may not be compelled to labor against their will, except in 
punishment for crime. They maj' leave work for any reason 
they see fit, even in violation of their contracts of employment, 
unless they are in military or sea service. In some cases courts 
have prohibited officers of labor unions from advising or call- 
ing illegal strikes, and from making benefit payments in aid of 
them. The more progressive view is that such prohibitions 
amount to an indirect method of compelling workingmen to 
labor against their will. 

The most effective manner in which the courts interfere in 
strikes is through the allowance of injunctions enjoining the 
strikers from committing acts of violence or intimidation. Of- 
ten these prohibitions are phrased very broadly, such as "coer- 
cing the said complainants to do any act they have a legal 
right to do or not to do," and "from in any manner interfer- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 19 

ing with the business of said complainants." Persons knowing 
of the issuance of such injunctions are bound to respect them, 
although they are not specifically named in them, or personally 
served with them. Violators of injunctions are subject to 
punishment for contempt of court without the jury trial. 

The practical effect of the allowance of injunctions in strikes 
is often to discourage the rank and file of the striking work- 
men. The average wage-earner does not understand how he 
may conduct himself during a strike without violating the in- 
junction which has been issued. The allowance of injunc- 
tions against strikers, again, usually loses them the support 
of public opinion since it seems to brand them as lawbreakers. 
The legality of boycotts is treated elsewhere. 



WAR ON THE PEOPLE^ 

Not employer or employee, but the patient, long-endur- 
ing public — foolishly patient and weakly enduring public — 
is the real sufferer in such riots as those which last week 
disgraced the city named in honor of brotherly love. Street 
cars burned, innocent bystanders shot, men and women 
clubbed, fusillades of missiles from windows with answering 
volleys of pistol-shots — all these things are the physical out- 
cropping of industrial medievalism. The street car corpor- 
ations have rights, the striking employees have rights — under 
the present system of not dealing with labor disputes both 
parties have too many rights. But above these legal rights 
of stopping work and of refusing to treat with unions stands 
the higher right of the people of Philadelphia to peace, safe- 
ty, and order. We do not care for the present purpose 
whether this labor war was provoked or unprovoked, whether 
the companies or the men are most to blame; ultimately the 
fault lies with the community at large, because it has pro- 
vided no reasonable way of dealing with such a situation, 
despite the fact that it is perfectly obvious that under the 
existing law conditions of lawlessness and violence may arise 
at any moment. 

It is true that Philadelphia is no worse in this matter 
than many other cities, although political vote-buying and 

"Outlook. 94:517-8. March s, 1910. 



20 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

partisan bargaining with unions and corporations have there 
induced a peculiarly corrupt condition. On the other hand, 
all cities which have failed to note that some countries have 
taken steps to make such strikes difficult or impossible are 
to blame for their civic backwardness. In another place in 
this number of The Outlook an interesting account is given 
by Mr. Paul Kennaday of New Zealand's radical law for 
compulsory arbitration, which, if it has not literally abolished 
strikes, has at least in large measure stopped senseless labor 
warfare. Repeatedly The Outlook has described Canada's 
Board of Conciliation, under which it is a punishable oflfense 
against the law to declare either a strike or lockout without 
prior investigation by the Board. A few weeks ago Mr. 
Walter G. Merritt in The Outlook pointed out that strikes 
on public utilities in their effect on the public, were disas- 
trous and dangerous, and suggested that the Inter-state 
Commerce Commission and the Public Service Comissions 
of the States receive power to do as part of an ordered sys- 
ten what was done as an informal expedient and to avert 
public disaster by Mr. Roosevelt's Anthracite Commission. 
How or by whom the work is to be done is an open question. 
The trouble is that we — that is, municipalities, legislatures, 
and Congress — sit supinelj^ by and do nothing. 

Every reasoning man knows what will follow in any large 
American city if suddenly street car motormen and conduct- 
ors go on strike and the companies send out part of their 
cars manned by strike-breakers or even by old employees 
who refuse to join their fellows. Crowds gather, a rabble 
collects, made up of men and boys, some strikers — more, 
probably, of the rowdy and reckless hoodlums found in the 
worst districts. From hooting and rough horse-play the ad- 
vance to stone-throwing and brutal beating is quick. Then 
come police clubbing and shooting, and quickly the city is 
in a state of semi-anarchy, and savagery is seen to be as 
surely the result of mob excitement as it was in the days of 
the French Terror. It is a public duty to put down rioting; 
but it would be wi^e to forestall it by making the exciting 
cause impossible./-'The law should forbid strikes of public 
utility employees in a body and without notice, because such 
strikes are an incentive to crime and an outrage against pub- < 
lie safety and comfort. But if it does this, it must, as a/ 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 21 

matter of plain justice, provide a fair and reasonable way 
in which the claims of the employees acting together may 
be heard and the right or wrong determined. Conciliation 
and compromise must supersede brickbats and pistol-shots — 
and this not only for the benefit of workingmen and business 
men, but in order that such civic chaos as that in Philadel- 
phia may become impossible under the sway of industrial 
democracy. 

VIOLENCE IN LABOR CONFLICTS' 

"Can strikes be conducted without violence? Can they 
succeed when not accompanied by lawlessness?" These are 
two questions recently asked of himself by John Mitchell, 
President of the United Mine Workers of America. To 
both of them he answers positively, "Yes! If I believed 
otherwise, I should abandon the trade-union movement forth- 
with." 

Unfortunately, stern and inexorable facts which I have 
gathered from every section of the Union prove that if 
strikes can be conducted without violence, without assaults, 
without lawlessness, without riots and murder, they are not, 
and, with rare and insignificant exception, they never have 
been. 

So continuous is the violence attendant on strikes that 
the reports fail to create any widespread popular abhorrence 
and reprobation. 

Labor conflicts are war. But only when war is waged 
by barbarians does it involve the women and children, the 
homes, the property, and. lives of non-combatants. Indus- 
trial wars make no distinction as to sex, innocence, or help 
lessness. They divide all involved into unionists and so 
called "sc?bs"; the one denying to the other "life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness," and the other not infrequently 
turning and taking his assailant's life in defense of his own. 

No one can read and ponder the record of the outrages, 
assaults, and deaths due I0 labor disturbances in the United 
States in the two years and a half to June 30th of this year, 
as I have done, without amazement and horror over the 

* By Slason Thompson. Outlook. 78:969-72. Dec. 17, 1904. 



23 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

crimes and unlawful acts accompanying the almost inces- 
sant strikes that have marked that period. 

Possibly Mr. Mitchell sincerely believes that "the great 
majority of strikes are inaugurated and fought without one 
single act of violence," as he says, but the facts presented 
in the following table of killed, injured, and arrested, as far 
as I have been able to gather them, argue that Mr. Mitchell 
is singularly blind to what has been going on about him in 
the great struggle in which he has played such a conspicu- 
ous part: 

Killed, Injured and Arrested in Strikes in the United States 
Between January i, 1902 and June 30, 1904, 

State KiUed Injured Arrested 

Arizona S 18 12 

California 6 34 31 

Colorado^ 42 112 1345 

Connecticut 4 45 65 

Idaho 12 

Illinois 35 477 1353 

Indiana 14 39 

Iowa 3 s 23 

Kentucky 3 5 

Louisiana i 38 79 

Maryland 9 10 

Massachusetts 3 19 

Michigan 3 4 7 

Minnesota g i 

Mississippi j 

Missouri 8 40 69 

Nebraska 2 g 9 

Nevada 3 4 i 

New Jersey 3 76 125 

New York 4 123 toio 

Ohio 3 20 23 

Oregon 4 18 

Pennsylvania 35 486 678 

Tennessee 4 7 88 

Texas i 15 62 

Utah 41 323 

Virginia i 24 25 

Washington 6 j i 

West Virginia 13 19 192 

Wisconsin 1 i m 

180 1651 SS33 

Since June 30th last, to which date this table brings 
down the record, we in Chicago have had at the stock-yards 
which has been proclaimed all over the country as a "peace- 
able strike." involving 26,000 workers. There have been five 
deaths. 213 serious assaults, innumerable riots and arrests, 

* In addition to the arrests in Colorado, there were 573 persons de- 
ported, the first case of deportation being that of 32 Japanese driven out 
by the striking miners of Fremont County on February, 1902. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 23 

and untold suffering and misery due to this one strike alone, 
and Chicago has had other strikes during the same period, 
Avith their attendant murders, assaults and arrests swelling the 
record of violence. 

In the two days fighting at San Juan and El Caney, the 
American losses were 230 killed, 1,283 wounded, and 81 
missing. If the full facts could be known, the fatally wound- 
ed in the two and a half years' labor war represented in the 
above summary would exceed the death list at San Juan, 
even as its incomplete list of injured does that in the battle 
which settled the Spanish-American War. 

The killed reported in this labor war were divided as fol- 
lows: 

Killed 

Non-union men 116 

Union strikers 51 

Officers 13 

Total 180 

The union men were almost invariably killed by non- 
unionists in self-defense, or in riots between them and offi- 
cers of the law. 

■ The non-union men almost invariably came to their death 
through slugging, shooting, dynamite, ambuscades, and all 
manner of assaults in which unionists or union sympathizers 
were the aggressors. 

The officers died in the performance of their duty in en- 
deavoring to preserve the peace in conflict with strikers. 

The wounded reported in this labor war were divided as 
follows : 

Injured 

Non-union men 1,366 

Union strikers 151 

Officers 134 

Total 1,651 

The explanation as to how the three classes came to be 
killed applies to the injured. Bu,t it should be remembered 
that the list of injured is far less complete than that of the 
killed, because all news agencies are more particular in re- 
porting strike fatalities, and I have ignored numberless as- 
saults, beatings and stonings, Avhere the serious nature of the 
injury was not reported. 



24 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

The arrests reported in this lawless war were divided as 
follows: 

Arrests 

Non-union men 374 

Union strikers S.I59 

Total S.S33 

This brief table conveys its own analysis, although it 
should be added that had (he arrests in connection with 
labor conflicts been publicly reported in other cities with 
anything like the fullness they are in Chicago newspapers, 
the exposure of the appalling prevalence of violence attend- 
ing strikes would have been even more startling. This leads 
to the explanation that in gathering the above facts, I had 
to rely on published accounts. Experienced and trustworthy 
newspaper men were employed in sixteen widelj'- separated 
news centers of the country to examine the files of the lead- 
ing newspapers of their respective sections. Where they 
returned "several" wounded or arrests, it has been entered 
for only two; and where the reports read "many" the entry 
has been made three. 

The inquiry was instituted to secure the concrete facts, 
if possible, and some reliable data as to the mortality through 
the unceasing war which labor unions have been waging in 
the United States during recent years. The National Bureau 
of Labor has told us that strikes and lockouts from 1881 
to 1900, inclusive, have cost employees $306,683,223, and em- 
ployers $142,659,104. The Labor Associations report how 
many of their strikes are successful, are compromised, or 
fail; the numbers engaged, losses, and gains. It is estimated 
that the labor troubles of 1902-03 reduced the purchasing 
ability of the American people $1,000,000,000. Records are 
kept of the number of murders, suicides, and lynchings an- 
nually. But hitherto no well-organized attempt has been 
made to gather into comprehensive shape the appalling rec- 
ord of violence and lawlessness partially disclosed in the 
foregoing tables. 

During the period covered by my inquiry, there were no 
serious labor disturbances in many of the States. The con- 
dition in various agricultural states was well summarized in 
the report of my Minnesota correspondent, as follows: 

In this section strikes are the exception rather than the rule. What 
few labor disagreements arise are settled by arbitration. This is an 
agricultural country, and the only strikes of any importance generally re- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 2S 

suit from railroad or street-car, flour-mill, or iron mine troubles. There 
have been no railroad or street-car strikes during this period, and the 
two or three little disputes in the mines brought no violence. The mill 
strikes last fall were reasonably orderly, only four persons being mal- 
treated. 

I could not find a single strike productive of violence in the Dakotas. 
Of course these states are even less industrial and more agricultural than 
Minnesota. 

My correspondent from Oregon and Washington wrote; 

The results of my exhaustive inquiries appear meagre because the 
above period was one of prosperity for our Northwest, work was easily 
found, and there were no racial complications. Manufacturing is com- 
paratively new and unimportant here, class distinctions are practically 
unknown, and the workers, as a rule, know their employers personally. 
Under such circumstances labor tro_ubles are bound to be rather smaller 
and less bitter than those of the t,ast. 

On the other hand, the difficulty of obtaining anything 
like full statistics of the violence attending strikes is indi- 
cated in the following extract from the report of my San 
Francisco correspondent, who attempted to cover California 
and Nevada: 

I regret to say that my report by no means is as complete as I hoped 
to make it at the outset, as I found that nothing was published with ref- 
erence to a large number of assaults due directly to the many strikes which 
have occurred here and elsewhere in this State during the period re- 
ferred to. Especially is this true of the country districts and the mining 
troubles; the reason being, apparently, that the correspondents feared to 
dwell upon these occurrences lest they should hurt . the reputation of 
their town, or for personal reasons. 1 was also astonished to find that 
in many instances, even in San Francisco, the papers failed to follow 
up the troubles between employers and employed, and, unless reported to 
the police, no mention is made of the assaults. 

That the cold figures in the above tables do not begin 
to tell the whole harrovs^ing tale of violence and outrage 
attending strikes during the period mentioned may be judged 
from the fact that in the State of Pennsylvania alone, be- 
tween May 1st and November 3rd, 1902, in connection with 
the "Peaceable strike" with which Mr. John Mitchell was 
more or less identified, there were: 

Thirty occupied dwellings dynamited. 
Forty trains obstructed or wrecked. 
Four dams and bridges dynamited. 

Scores of houses burned, stoned, shot into, or otherwise attacked. 
Unnumbered riots and assaults with clubs, stones, and other weapons. 
Cattle poisoned, doctors forbidden to attend the sick, ministers boy- 
cotted for ministering to the dying. 

The story of the reign of terror in the Pennsylvania an- 
thracite coal region during the last great strike has never 
been and can never be written. From beginning to end it 
was attended by every conceivable description and degree 
of human fiendishness. Malicious and criminal mischief held 



26 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

carnival in many districts. Outbreaks of minor deviltry did 
not spare the mother bearing her infant in her arms, or 
innocent children on their Mray to school. Clergymen were 
notified not to bury dead non-unionists, and union men re- 
fused to worship at the same altar with the industrious 
"scab" who preferred to work rather than see his family 
starve. 

"Violence" seems a very moderate word by which to de- 
scribe deeds like these, which might more adequately be 
termed savagery. 

Nor must it be inferred that the industrial war as waged 
in Pennsylvania or Colorado has any monopoly of the bar- 
barity that breaks the peace of the commonwealth, defies 
the law, and sets man against man through every member 
of his faniil3\ In every section of the country like condi- 
tions and passions have produced like results. We have seen 
funerals stoned in Chicago, and graves and crematories dese- 
crated in San Francisco by striking unionists. 

It may be that violence is not necessary to the success 
of any strike, but the testimony of incontrovertible facts 
proves that violence and lawlessness in some form or other 
is the almost inseparable concomitant of all strikes involving 
large bodies of men. We hear some leaders pleading pub- 
licly for peace, but they and their followers know that a 
strike means a breaking off of peaceable relations and an 
appeal to force, which at every stage employs the terms, 
tactics and weapons of war in contempt of the law and in 
defiance of the sovereign authority of the State. 

A strike involving large bodies of rugged men, where the 
employer exercises his legal right to fHl the places of the 
strikers, unattended by verbal and physical violence, includ- 
ing assaults, boycotts, ostracism, vile epithets, hanging in 
effigy, threats, intimidation, stoning, slugging, shooting, de- 
struction of property, dynamiting, arson, assassination, mur- 
der, or some of these symptoms of peace-defying passions, 
is a rare species of strike, almost as unknown as it is in- 
nocuous. 

To ask men to unite in self-sacrifice for principle, in- 
volving, as most strikes necessarily must, deprivation and 
distress to themselves and those dependant on them, and 
expect them to see their places filled without the resentment 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 27 

that would kill the thing it hates, is to imagine men eman- 
cipated from the passion that sent Cain forth a fugutive on 
the face of the earth. A strike without violence of some 
sort is a barren ideality that exists only in the minds of self- 
deceived sentimentalists, professional agitators, and unsophis- 
ticated economists. 

Since the above was written, I have gathered the follow- 
ing additional statistics from the reports in the Chicago 
newspapers covering the three months to September 30th, 
1904, which show that there has been no abatement in the 
violence attending labor strikes: 

Killed, Injured, and Arrested in Strikes in the United States During 
Three Months, July i to September 30, 1904. 

Killed Injured Arrested 

Non-union men g 260 41 

Union strikers . . . ; 5 22 540 

Officers 4 33 • • • • 

Total 18 315 581 

Making a total for the two years and nine months of: 

Killed Injured Arrested 

Non-union men 125 1,626 415 

Union strikers 56 173 5,699 

Officers 17 167 .... 

Total 198 i,q66 6,114 

If the returns for the last three months included in this 
table were anything like as comprehensive as those for the 
preceding two years and a half, the showing would be a 
still more startling contradiction of the theory that strikes 
can be conducted without violence or that they are so con- 
ducted. 



DYNAMITE OUTRAGE^ 

One of the most sensational events in the history of in- 
dustrial labor in the United States began at Indianapolis, 
Ind., on April 22nd, 191 1, when John J. McNamara, secre- 
tary-treasurer of the International Association of Bridge and 
Structural Iron Workers, was arrested on a charge of mur- 
der in connection with the explosion that wrecked the build- 
ing of The Times newspaper at Los Angeles, Cal., on Oc- 

^ Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States Hbtory, Vol. 3. 



28 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

tober 1st, 1910, when twenty-one persons were killed, and 
a property loss of $1,000,000 was sustained. This arrest was 
soon followed by that of his brother, James B. McNamara 
and Ortie E. McManigal; by the extradition of all three to 
Los Angeles; and by their indictment on May 4th following 
by the Grand Jury of that city. These proceedings were 
followed by the arrest in Indianopolis of William J. Burns, 
the detective who had worked up the case, and several legal 
representatives of Los Angeles, on a charge of having kid- 
napped the McNamaias and McManigal; their release on 
bail; the discovery of considerable quantities of dynamite 
stocks hidden in various places; the confession of McMani- 
gal, implicating the McNamaras and disclosing methods of 
dynamite outrages, and the pledge of ample funds for the 
defence, of the accused. The McNamaras and many con- 
spicuous labor leaders declared the proceedings— so far as 
here outlined — the result of a conspiracy by capital against 
organized labor. 

The general public had been aware for several years of 
numerous mysterious wreckings of buildings, bridges, via- 
ducts, and other large public, private, and corporate struc- 
tures by dynamite but as none of the perpetrators of such 
outrages had been apprehended, the incidents were usually 
attributed to "some labor trouble," and then passed out of 
mind. The disclosures in the Los Angeles case, however, 
threw a new light on the subject, and this was intensified by 
the publication of a list of seventy dynamite outrages that 
had occurred between the summer of 1905 and mid-March, 
191 1, compiled by the National Erectors' Association. Com- 
menting on this list the New York Times said: 

"Practically no part of the United States has been free from dyna- 
mite outrages during the last few years. In nearly all cases there was a 
careful preparation, showing that the outrages were planned and executed 
by men who knew their business. 

"Many of the outrages entailed a loss of life, and all causi-d consid- 
erable financial losses. Contractors, in some cases, have been driven into 
bankruptcy because of the lack of confidence in their ability to con- 
struct without disaster, and some contractor^ hnve been compelled to put 
iheir work in other hands. 

"Planning of a professional nature has been a striking feature of all 
the outrages. In numerous instances clocks operating the explosives 
were set to cause the explosion in different parts of the country at 
exactly the same minute. Homes have been endangered, although in 
most cases the bombs failed either to explode or were found in time to 
prevent disaster." 

After spending ten weeks in the county jail at Los An- 
geles, John J. and James B. McNamara pleaded "not guilty" 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 29 

to nineteen charges of murder on July 12th, Judge Walter 
Bordwell having overruled every point advanced by the de- 
fence for the quashing of the indictments. The task of se- 
lecting a jury proved a formidable one, owing to objections 
interposed by counsel on both sides. By the middle of No- 
vember 325 men had been drawn and only five accepted, and 
it was then believed that the jury-box would not be filled 
before the end of the year. 

In the meanwhile (October 28) Charles W. Miller, United 
States attorney at Indianapolis, Ind., filed a petition in the 
County Criminal Court, charging that a conspiracy had ex- 
isted to unlawfully transport dynamite and nitroglycerine on 
passenger trains engaged in interstate commerce from that 
city through Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and 
California to Los Angeles, and asking possession of the in- 
criminating evidence seized by the police at the offices in 
that city of the International Association of Bridge and 
Structural Iron Workers, of which John J. McNamara was 
vv^as secretary, and at other places in Indianapolis, to be used 
in a federal grand jury investigation. 

By December ist, however. Detective Burns had woven 
such a close net-work of evidence around the accused that 
on that day James B. McNamara pleaded guilty to murder 
in the first degree, in open court, in having placed the dyna- 
mite under the Times Building in Los Angeles, and his 
brother, John J. McNamara, pleaded guilty to having caused 
a similar explosion at the Llewellj'-n Iron Works, also in 
Los Angeles, from which no fatalities occurred. On Decem- 
ber sth. Judge Bordwell sentenced James B. AlcNamara to 
imprisonment for life and his brother to fifteen years. In 
making his written confession James B. McNamara declared 
that on the night of September 30th, he had placed a suit- 
case containing sixteen sticks of 80 per cent, dynamite, set 
to explode at one o'clock the next morning, in Ink Alley, 
a portion of the Times Building; that it was his intention to 
injure the building and scare the owners; and that he did 
not intend to take the life of any one. 

After the sensational termination of the McNamara trial 
in Los Angeles the federal grand jury there, as well as that 
at Indianapolis, Ind., began a rigid inquiry to discover the 
person or persons "higher up" who had planned, sanctioned 



30 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

and supplied the funds for the dynamiting operations in va- 
rious parts of the country. In this inquiry they were at first 
greatly aided by Ortie E. McManigal, who had confessed to 
having personally caused many explosions by direction of 
James B. McNamara, and later by several former employes 
of McNamara at his headquarters in Indianapolis, and the 
seizure of a large quantity of records and other evidence, be- 
sides many stocks of dynamite that had been secreted in 
out-of-the-way places. 

The following are brief statements from the list com- 
piled by the National Erectors' Association: 

Dynamite Outrages, 1905-1911 

One of the earliest of the attacks was in the summer of 1905, when 
a watchman on a bridge under construction for the Central Vermont 
Railroad at Miller's Falls, Mass., was assaulted. The following morning 
the foreman found thirteen sticks of dynamite on the bridge. The fus» 
had been lighted, but had become extinguished. 

During the same summer an engineer found dynamite in the fire-box 
of a hoisting engine used in the construction of the Kimberley Avenue 
bridge, over the West River, for the city of New Haven, Conn. 

An attempt was made on March 12, 1906, to dynamite the Hotel 
Frankfort, Cleveland, Ohio, where a number of employees of a bridge 
construction company were boarding. The dynamite exploded, but the 
wrecked part of the building was reached in time to prevent destruction 
by fire. 

Three sticks of dynamite were discovered in the firebox of a hoist- 
ing engine used in the construction of the Arcade Building in Cleve- 
land on April 2, 1906. The fuse had been attached and, it appeared, had 
been lighted. 

An attempt was made one month later to wreck a derrick used in 
constructing a bridge on the Buffalo & Susquehanna Railroad. The at- 
tempt was frustrated. 

A derrick used in the construction of the Central Railroad of New 
Jersey was dynamited and destroyed on May 31, 1906. 

Dynamite was found on a derrick used in the construction of a 
Nickel Plate viaduct on September 25, 1905. A time clock was found 
also. The infernal machine probably had been dropped from a passing 
train, as the package bad been broken open and the dynamite scattered. 

During the construction of a viaduct for the P. V. & C. Railroad, 
near Clairton, Penn., a derrick car was dynamited. The outrage was 
committed on Oct. 12, 1906. A watchman was decoyed away from the 
place and assaulted. 

Dynamite exploded under a bascule bridge over the Cuyahoga River 
at Whiskey Island, near Cleveland, Ohio, on Dec. 30, 1906. The damage 
was slight. 

In September, 1907, a hoisting engine, used at the plant of the 
American Steel and Wire Company, Cleveland, was dynamited and de- 
stroyed. The dynamiting was done at night. 

Early in the morning of Oct. 30, 1907, an attempt was made to 
wreck the Baltimore & Ohio bridge at Youngstown, Ohio. The dynamite 
exploded, but the bridge was not wrecked. 

Two months later dynamite was placed under a railroad bridge on 
the Newark Branch of the Erie Railroad, near Harrison, N. J. The 
dynamite damaged one of the girders and blew out thirty-six square feet 
of buckle plate. The damage was $2,000. 

Two tons of material which was to have been used on the Parma 
Road Bridge on the Cleveland Short Line was damaged to such an ex- 
tent on Dec. 31, 1907, that it had to be replaced. There was a loss of 
$500. 

On the same night ten tons of material for the construction of the 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 31 

L. E. & P. Railroad's Mill Creek viaduct was damaged and a loss of 
$1,200 resulted. 

Several girders for the Eagle Avenue Bridge, Cleveland, were dyna- 
mited the night of Jan. 17, 1908, and considerable surrounding property 
was damaged. 

Thirty sticks of dynamite were found in various parts of a derrick- 
car used in the construction of a Chicago & Northwestern Railroad bridge 
over the Mississippi River at Clinton, Iowa, on February 16, 1908. Only 
a small part of the dynamite exploded. The damage was $2,000. 

A month later a derrick-car on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railroad at Buena Park, Chicago, was dynamited. 

During the same month a charge of dynamite was placed on a draw- 
bridge at Perth Amboy, N. J., causing a $1,500 loss. 

A bridge near Bradshaw, Md., was damaged the same night. 

A hoisting crane used in the construction of the Chelsea Piers, 
New York, was damaged to the extent of $1,000 the night of April s, 
1908. 

A loss of $1,000 was caused on April 13, 1908, when dynamite was 
placed under material prepared for the Philadelphia Elevated Railroad. 

An explosion of dynamite caused a loss of $2,000, April 36, 1908, 
at a bridge at Fall River, Mass. 

Dynamite caused a loss on May 3, 1908, to the Cincinnati Hamilton 
and Dayton Railroad's Miami River bridge at Dayton, Ohio. Much 
of the material had to be replaced. 

An attempt was made the night of May 21, 1908, to destroy a draw- 
bridge over the Bronx River of the New York, New Haven & Hartford 
Railroad. A watchman was assaulted and his cries caused the would-be 
perpetrators to flee. The men discarded a suitcase in their flight, con- 
taining 103 sticks of dynamite and two coils of fuse. 

A bridge of the same company at Baychester, N. Y.. was damaged 
to the extent of $1,500 early the next morning. 

An apparent attempt was made the night of May 24, 1908, to destroy 
a Baltimore & Ohio bridge at Aiken, Md. A watchman pursued a man 
who was loitering about the bridge, and the fugitive tripped over a guy 
wire. The next morning five sticks of dynamite were found where he 
fell. 

An attempt was made June 2, 1908, to dynamite a Baltimore & Ohio 
bridge at Perryville, Md. Four men approached the bridge, but were 
frightened away by a watchman, leaving dynamite behind them. 

The same night an explosion of dynamite wrecked a steel derrick, 
twisted the rear wall of a big steel building out of shape, and did other 
damage at Cleveland, Ohio. Fourteen sticks of dynamite, unexploded, 
were found later with burned fuses attached. 

The evening of June 15, 1908, a charge of dynamite exploded under 
a pile of material used in the construction of a bridge for the New 
York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad at Somerset, Mass., entailing a 
loss of about $1,000. 

Two charges of dynamite were exploded on the bridge of the Lehigh 
Valley Railroad at Buffalo, N. Y., the night of July i, 1908, weakening 
the structure and causing a loss of $1,500. 

The Illinois Central Railroad bridge in Chicago was dynamited on 
August 6, 1908. The loss was nearly $20,000. 

The same night the Harrison Avenue viaduct at Louisville, Ky., was 
damaged by either dynamite or nitroglycerine. 

Two charges of dynamite were exploded on the Eighteenth Street 
bridge in St. Louis, Mo., on the morning of August 9, 1908. 

An attempt was made on October 15, 1908, to destroy a bridge at 
Holyoke, Mass. Two watchmen found the burning fuse and put it out 
before any damage was done. 

A charge of dynamite wrecked a portion of a bridge at Cleveland, 
Ohio, on November 30, 1908. _ The damage was $500. 

Dynamite wrecked a building in Kansas City, Mo., on December 24, 
1908. 

A loss of $500 was caused at Indiana Harbor, Ind., on March 18, 
1909, when a carload of steel was dynamited. 

During the same month, at the same place, two packages of dynamite 
with a fuse attached were thrown from a Lake Shore freight train. No 
damage was done. 

The southeast side of the new opera house at Boston, Mass., was 
destroyed by dynamite March 27, 1909. 



32 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

A part of a viaduct at Hoboken, N. J., and considerable surround- 
ing property, was damaged by dynamite on March 30, 1909. Several 
persons had narrow escapes, five or six being injured. 

A derrick-car doing construction work at Kansas City, Mo., w.is 
dynamited on April 29, 1909. 

The Cincinnati Southern bridge at Cincinnati was damaged by dyna- 
mite the next month. 

Another attempt was made to wreck the same bridge on May 24, 
1909, two charges of dynamite being exploded. 

Considerable damage was done on June 7, 1909, to the New York 
Central Railroad's bridge across East Ferry Street, Buffalo, N. Y. 

A loss of $2,000 was caused by the dynamiting of material await- 
ing delivery June 26, 1909, for the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge at 
Steubenville, Ohio. 

The same night the Main Street viaduct at Kansas City, Mo., under 
construction, was dynamited. 

A suit-case containing gun-cotton was exploded under a pile of steel 
girders in the yard of the Whitehead & Kales plant at Detroit, Mich., on 
June 9, 1909. 

A third attempt to wreck the Cincinnati Southern's viaduct was made 
August 12, 1909. The dynamite caused $700 damage. 

Dynamite partly wrecked a railroad bridge in New York City, August 
15, 1909. 

A month later dynamite destroyed a derrick used in the construction 
of a viaduct over the New York Central Railroad tracks at Buffalo, N. Y. 

Another attempt on this same viaduct was made on October 6, 1909. 

Four buildings under construction by Albert von Spreckelsen in In- 
dianapolis were damaged on October 24, 1909. The total estimated loss 
was $13,000. The buildings were a telephone exchange, a library build- 
ing, Mr. von Spreckelsen's planing-mill, and his barn. 

A crane being used in the construction of a bridge near Cleveland. 
Ohio, was dynamited on Nov. 4, 1909, causing a loss of $40,000. A 
watchman was buried under the debris and narrowly escaped death. 

A bomb was exploded under four cars of structural steel on a Michi- 
gan Southern side track in Chicago on January 22, 1910. It is estimated 
that the damage was $3,000. 

The plant of the Pacific Coast and Lumber Company, Oakland, Cal., 
was wrecked by dynamite during the summer of 1910, being the fourth 
time in two years. 

An office building being erected in Seattle, Wash., wa.s destroyed 
by dynamite in September, 1910. 

Dynamite was used in two places in Peoria, 111., on the night of 
September 4, 19 10. The plant of the Lucas Bridge and Iron Works 
was wrecked and the night watchman was injured seriously. Two car- 
loads of steel girders for use in a railroad bridge at Peoria were dyna 
mited. A two-gallon can of nitroglycerine was found hidden in the 
steel girders of the new railroad bridge the next day. A time clock had 
been set, but the explosion was prevented by faulty electrical connec- 
tions. The clock had been set to discharge the nitroglycerine at the 
same hour the Lucas plant was destroyed. A bomb exploded at the 
plant of the Winslow Brothers' Company at Chicago, on September 15, 
1910. 

The Los Angeles Times Building was destroyed on October i, iqio. 
twenty-one lives being lost. The property loss was $1,000,000. This 
was the worst disaster due to an e.xplosive that had been recorded. 

A search the next day disclosed dynamite near the home of Gen. 
Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the "Times," and the home of the secre- 
tary of the Merchants' Association. 

In the summer of 1910, dynamite was exploded in a new church 
structure at Clinton, Ind., and the building wrecked. Shortly before a 
bridge at the place was wrecked by dynamite. 

On March 20, 191 t, dynamite was exploded beneath a new wing of 
a hotel under construction at French Lick, Ind. 

Early in the morning of March 24, 1911, dynamite exploded in the 
basement of the new court-house at Omaha, Neb., causing a large loss. 

The same night the office of the Caldwell & Drake Manufacturing 
Company at Columbus, Ind., were dynamited and destroyed. The plant 
was not damaged. The Omaha court-house was built by the Columbus 
concern. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 33 

Ore conveyors of Pickands & Mather of North Randall, Ohio, were 
totally destroyed by dynamite on March 25, 19 11. 

St. Peter's Street (South Bend, Ind.) viaduct was dynamited oa 
April 2, 1911. The same day an attempt to wreck Grand Trunk Bridge 
across St. Joseph River was thwarted. 

The Springfield (Mass.) muncipal building, in course of construction, 
was damaged by two dynamite explosions on April 4, 19 11. 

The Westchester & Boston Railway viaduct at Mount Vernon, N. Y., 
was wrecked by dynamite on September 3, 191 1. 

The new Lyon County court-house in Yerington, Nev., built of re- 
inforced concrete, was damaged beyond repair by a dynamite explosion, 
December 18, 191 1. 



THE BOYCOTT' 

A boycott in labor disputes may be defined as a combi- 
nation of workmen to cease all dealings with another, an 
employer or, at times, a fellow worker, and, usually, also 
to induce or to coerce third parties to cease such dealings, 
the purpose being to persuade or to force such other to com- 
ply with some demand or to punish him for non-compliance 
in the past. 

The boycott may be divided into the primary, the second- 
ary, and the compound boycotts. A primary boycott, an 
unimportant form, may be defined as a .simple combination 
of persons to suspend dealings with a party obnoxious to 
them, involving no attempt to persuade or to coerce third 
persons to suspend dealings also. 

A secondary boycott consists of a combination of work- 
men to induce or persuade third parties to suspend business 
relations with those against whom they have a grievance. 
A compound boycott appears when the workmen use co- 
ercive and intimidating measures in preventing third parties 
from dealing with the boycotted firms. 

Compound boycotts are of two kinds: those involving 
threats or pecuniary injury and those involving threats of 
actual phJ^sical force and violence. 

The primary, secondary and compound forms of the boy- 
cott may be directed against a fellow workman or against 
an employer of labor. If directed against a workman, it is 
sometimes called a labor boycott. In enforcing a boycott, 
effort is sometimes made to induce or coerce customers to 
withdrav/ patronage from the "unfair" employer; sometimes 
to induce or coerce sellers to cease supplying an "unfair" 

1 American Labor Year Book, 1916. p. 84-5. Bv Harry W. Laidler. 



34 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

employer with needed material; sometimes to induce or co- 
erce employes to quit work. The last named form is known 
in law as a labor boycott. 

Five states prohibit boycotting by name. Thirty-three 
-tales make illegal one or more forms under statutes relating 
to conspiracy, coercion, intimidation, interference with em- 
ployment, and enticing employes. 

The common law decisions in the states have generally 
held the primary boycotts legal. As nearly as can be ascer- 
tained, the highest courts have flatly decided against second- 
ary or compounding boycotting in some fourteen states. In 
two states labor boycotts only have been condemned. 

The cases among others in which boycotting has been 
declared legal are: Lindsay Co. vs. Montana Federation of 
Labor (Montana 1908) 96 Pac. 127; Parkinson and Co. vs. 
Buildings Trades Council (California 1908) 98 Pac. 1027; 
Pierce vs. Stablemen's Union (California 1909) 103 Pac. 324; 
National Protective Association vs. Cummings (New York 
1902) 63 N. E. 369; and Mills vs. U. S. Printing Co. (New 
York 1904) 99 App. Div. 605. 



INTIMIDATION AND DEPORTATION' 

In the early spring of 1917 a number of small strikes oc- 
curred among the loggers of Idaho and eastern Washington. 
These strikes were repeated until about the first of June. Two 
thirds of the lumber workers of Idaho, Montana, and eastern 
Washington were out and the strike had spread to the eastern 
slope of the Cascades in Washington. It was at this time that 
a series of persecutions started which continued throughout the 
war. Two Camps of the third Oregon Infantry were sent to 
Cle Eum and they rounded up all the pickets, threw them into 
the stockade at Ellensburg, Wash., where they were held for 
months without charges being placed against them. 

Soldiers were sent to many points in Washington and Idaho 
where the same thing occurred. In the meantime the strike 
had spread into the rich timber belt of Puget Sound and by 
July 15, 1917 fifty thousand lumber workers were on strike, 

1 Extract from an article by Peter Stone. Acting Secretary-Treasurer 
of the I. W. W. in The American Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, p. 191-2. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 35 

their demands being a basic eight hour day and sanitary camp 
conditions. 

On June 12, 191 7 fourteen thousand miners in the city o£ 
Butte, Mont, went on strike following the loss of two hundred 
sixty lives in a fire in the Speculator mine. The strike was 
principally for the abolition of the blacklist and for union 
control of safety appliances underground. This strike was 
called and conducted jointly by the I. W. W. and the Inde- 
pendent Miners' Union of that city. The strike was, however, 
taken up by the I. W. W. miners in Arizona, where twenty-four 
thousand miners went out. 

On July 10 nearly a hundred miners in Jerome, Ariz., were 
taken from their homes early in the morning by the so-called 
Loyalty League. They were loaded on cattle cars. The train 
was headed towards California, but was turjied back at the 
state line by the officials of that state. The men were then 
taken to Prescott, Ariz., where they were held in jail for three 
weeks before they were released. 

At Bisbee, Ariz., at five o'clock in the morning of July 12, 
two thousand company officials, gunmen, business men etc., 
armed with rifles, similarly dragged twelve hundred strikers 
and their sympathizers from their beds and compelled them 
to march miles to Lowell and neighboring towns. They were 
finally coralled into a ball park at Lowell, until a train of cattle 
cars was made up. The miners were forced into the cars amid 
rioting, in which one man, a striker, was killed. The train was 
sent through the desert and finally taken charge of by the 
United States soldiers encamped at Columbus, N. M. 

Here they stayed for three months, being furnished army ra- 
tions, waiting for the government to give them protection in 
returning to Bisbee. This the government steadfastly refused 
to do, and finally, when the army rations were cut off, the camp 
broken up. Some of the men drifted back to Bisbee where 
they were promtly arrested. Others scattered to different parts 
of the country. 

STRIKE-BREAKING ' 

The most recent institution for meeting the exigencies of 
modem industrial life is an establishment concerned in strike- 

^New Encyclopaedia of Social Reform, p. 11 67. 



36 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

breaking. This is an agency which provides men to factories, 
street-car lines, etc., the employees of which have gone on 
strike. The strike-breakers are not a hoodlum class, neither 
are they men looking for excitement or occasional work; but 
a set of picked men, each skilled in a particular line of work. 
The agency has about 225,000 men on its lists in different trades 
throughout the United States. The handling of such an army 
of workmen and their proper placing at times of need re- 
quires system. 

Candidates, in order to get their names on the list, must 
pass a rigorous examination as to character and physical and 
professional fitness. A corps of twenty-three men is detailed to 
examine candidates. When a strike is impending or has been 
declared, this agency is notified by the employers, and it con- 
tracts to supply a sufficient number of skilled men to take the 
place of the strikers, and then selects its men, each of whom 
must sign an agreement to keep at work on the new job at least 
thirty days. Traveling expenses in addition to good wages are 
paid by the agency. The agency maintains a commissary and 
a quartermaster's department to feed and house the strike- 
breakers, and is able to fill the strikers' places within a very 
short time. 

Strike-breakers are, however, frequently exposed to violence 
on the part of the strikers and their friends. A department of 
protection has been formed by the agency to provide adequate 
protection for its men. The head of this department is in touch 
with sheriffs and police officials all over the country. His 
men, numbering between 500 and 600, are sworn in as special 
deputies on each occasion so as to have a legal standing; they 
are under military discipline and must pass an examination 
equivalent to that for the police department of New York. 

While the department of protection is well organized and 
reckless or irresponsible men are kept out, it is nevertheless a 
reflection on the city, state or county to have need of this 
private army of detectives or deputies for the protection of 
private or corporate property. The agency has succeeded well 
in breaking strikes, and has attained large financial success. 
But it is open to the same objection as the Pinkertons (q.v.) 
and other private semimilitary organizations within the state 
having the privileges but not the responsibilities of public of- 
ficials. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 37 

THE PINKERTON AGENCY AND LABOR 
STRUGGLES ' 

In 1852 Allan G. Pinkerton, a Scotchman, involved in the 
Chartist outbreak in Birmingham, emigrated to the United 
States, and here, having from love of adventure secured the 
arrest of a band of counterfeiters, established in Chicago a 
detective agency. His agency was successful, and during the 
War of the Rebellion, Mr. Pinkerton superintended the secret 
service of the army. When the industrial conditions of the 
country led to violence and strikes, Pinkerton organized a body 
of armed men who were hired to protect the property of the 
employers. Later, in the labor troubles in Pennsylvania, Pink- 
erton's Agency was employed against the Molly Maguires, a 
secret society founded in the coal-mining section of Pennsyl- 
vania, which was exposed chiefly through the instrumentality of 
James McParlan, a detective, and Franklin B. Gowan, Presi- 
dent of the Pennsylvania & Reading Coal & Iron Company. 
Henceforth the Pinkerton Agency was employed more and 
more by employers to defend their works from threatened 
violence on the part of mobs in connection with strikes. They 
became bitterly hated by working men. The working men 
claim that the Pinkertons do more than protect the property of 
their employers. They claim that the agency goes into the 
shims of the great cities, hires desperadoes and men of the 
worst character, swears them in as special detectives, and then 
sends them not only to protect the property of employers, but 
to incense the populace and provoke it to violence, then firing 
upon the populace on the least provocation. The working men 
claim that the Pinkertons create more evil than they allay. 
Stories are circulated of the Pinkertons secretly doing violence 
themselves, laying it to working men, and then firing on them. 
In the great Homestead strike Pinkertons in large numbers and 
armed with rifles were brought to Homestead, the working men 
rising and repulsing them as they would an invading army. 
Working men claim that the duty of protecting property should 
be left to the police; that if these are not sufficient, the army 
should be called in, but that bodies of reckless armed private 
mercenaries should not be allowed to fire on citizens. As a 

1 New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 896-7. 



38 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

result of this popular feeling, Congress appointed a committee 
to investigate into the employment of such private armed bodies 
of men, and some states passed bills forbidding such employ- 
ment. 

Nevertheless, the Pinkerton and other agencies are con- 
tinually employed in times of strikes, and the former is said 
to have been particularly active in the Colorado labor struggles. 
During the Haywood trial (June 1907) attempts were made 
By labor agitators to charge the Pinkerton agents with foment- 
ing strife among and violence on the part of the Western 
Federation of Miners. A number of letters from operatives 
in the pay of the Pinkerton agency were placed in evidence in 
court, which, however, proved nothing more than spying on 
the part of these men. The letters were obtained and placed 
before the court on behalf of the defense by Morris Fried- 
man, a young Hebrew-American, who testified that he had been 
stenographer to McParland, the manager of the Denver agency, 
and admitted that he had taken many letters from that office, 
without asking anybody's permission, for use at the "proper 
time and place, as I have done." These letters, together with 
other evidence, were, however, stricken out and withdrawn 
from the jury in the Haj'wood trial (1907) as soon as the 
defense rested without making the necessary connection to make 
them material. Friedman admitted having written a book based 
on his observations in the Pinkerton office under the title "The 
Pinkerton Labor Spy." The publishers of this work in their 
preface state that they "recognize the Pinkerton agency as an 
indispensable instrument to the capitalist class in the great and 
unceasing struggle with labor." (For a complete statement of 
this phase, and a statement of contrary views, see article 
Western Federation of Miners in New Encyclopedia of Social 
Reform.) 

The assertion that Pinkerton agents have been engaged in 
espionage in the interests of capitalists has not been denied, 
and the practice concerns this work, therefore, only in its re- 
lations to society. The Pinkertons were responsible for the 
disbanding of the "Molly Maguires" ; for the capture of a gang 
of thieves who had robbed the Adams Express Company safe 
of $700,000 on a New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad 
train (Jan. 6, 1866), and in dispersing a body of murderers who 
had terrorized the State of Indiana for a number of years. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 39 

Why do private corporations employ private detective 
agencies instead of calling upon the police of the municipal- 
ities and the constabulary of the states? Is it from choice or 
from necessity? Why do, moreover, the government of the 
United States, the governors of the states, and the mayors of 
the cities in this country permit such agencies to exist? Other 
civilized countries do not permit private police agencies to inter- 
fere with the state agencies of public safetA^ Why, then, has 
such a condition arisen in this country? 

There can be onty one answer to these questions. The inade- 
quacy and the inefficiency of our police force — taking this work 
in its widest sense, as implying all agencies that have to do with 
the prevention and detection of crime, the maintenance of pub- 
lic safety, and the protection of life and property. This inef- 
ficiency may be due to one or all of three causes: (l) 
Paucity of numbers in the force; (2) intellectual deficiency of 
the men employed; (3) lack of integrity. 



THE RIGHT TO STMKE ' 

What is the right of strike? If it means the right of men 
to quit private employment individually or collectively every 
one will concede it. No man can be made to work against his 
will in free America, except he becomes a vagrant or a convict. 
But the right to quit work essentially involves the correspond- 
ing right to continue at work, and one is just as sacred as the 
other. Government should not deny or diminish either. It 
should, if need be, sustain men in the exercise of both. Upon 
this proposition I think we agree. 

But beyond this point the divergence begins. The mere 
right to quit working does not define the organized wage 
earner's conception of a strike. That is purely negative and ac- 
complishes nothing. What he understands and what he has 
been taught to understand by his leaders, by political parties, 
and candidates anxious for his vote, is that the strike is a 
weapon which he has the right to wield offensively or defen- 
sively in order to effectuate the purpose for which he invokes 
it. He may, in pursuance of it, disregard contracts, compel 
others to strike, prevent others from taking his place and con- 

1 Extract from _ a letter of Senator Charles S. Thomas to Samuel 
Gompers, Congressional Record, December 2, 1919. 



40 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

tinuing operation; he may destroy property and terrorize com- 
munities if by doing these things or any of them he may ac- 
complish his object, even though it may rise to the dignity of a 
conspiracy against trade. 

He does not, it is true, openly avow his right to go so far 
as this, but in practice they feature every prolonged strike of 
any magnitude. 

The word itself implies force; violence lurks within it. 
Aggression is its synonym. Henry George, himself a trade- 
unionist than whom labor had no better friend nor abler cham- 
pion, thus characterized the strike in a letter to Pope Leo XIII : 

"Aiming- at the restrictions of competition — the limitation of the right 
tp labor — its methods are like those of the army, which even in a 
righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to abuse while its 
weapon, tlie strike, is destructive in its nature both to combatants and 
noncombatants * * * Labor associations can do nothing to raise wages 
but by force. It may be force applied passively or force applied actively 
or force held in reserve, but it must be force. They must coerce or 
hold the power to coerce employers; they must coerce those among their 
own members disposed to straggle; they must do their best to get into 
their hands the whole field of labor they seek to occupy, and to force 
other workmen either to join them or to starve." » » * 

We judge the strike by what we know it to be in practice. 

There it is war against competition. Woe to the man or the 

men who would take the place of the strikers. Quoting again 

from Henry George : 

"They must do their best to starve workmen who do not join them; 
they must by all means in their power force back the scab as a soldier 
in battle must shoot down his mother's son, if in the opposing ranks, 
a fellow creature seeking work, a fellow creature, in all probability more 
pressed and starved than those who bitterly denounce him and often 
with the hungry, pleading faces of wife and child behind him. And in 
so far as they succeed, what is it that trades, guilds and unions do but 
to impose more restriction on natural rights; to create "trusts" in labor 
to add to privileged classes other somewhat privileged classes; to pres« 
the weaker to the wall." 

Mr. Foster says they must be "exterminated like vermin." 
We must not too severely denounce this policy, for it is the 
inexorable consequence of the denial to the citizen of the 
right to work when and as he will whether he aflfiliates with 
his fellows or not. The source of our present difficulties is the 
failure of government to recognize and to vindicate this funda- 
mental right, which no man of intelligence has ever publicly 
challenged, hut to which all men have long been callously in- 
different. 

This is the real menace of the coal strike, and is the element 
which invokes the interference of the government. The miners 
may refuse to work and be within their constitutional rights; 
but while they so refuse, few men dare to continue mining and 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 41 

fewer to enter that field, however dire the necessity for fuel, 
because of the certain danger involved. They are sure to en- 
counter the power of the national organization, to be expressed 
in terms of boycott, violence, assault, and murder. Without 
the protection of their government, the industry is suspended. 
It is a basic one, and that spells the ultimate suspension of all 
dependent industries. Idleness, nonproduction, food and fuel 
scarcity, suffering, starvation, riot, lawlessness, and demoraliza- 
tion. Nation wide in extent are the inevitable consequences. 
These affect us all, everjrwhere. It has become the nation's 
business. It is its most insistent business. It will be effectu- 
ally attended to whatever the cost and however we may differ 
regarding congressional discussion and department assurances. 
Meanwhile all, I trust, will perceive in the pending strike 
the futility of industrial warfare. It is expensive, destructive, 
estranging. Only by recognizing our reciprocal rights, duties, 
and obligations, and the essential of every element of society 
and economics to the whole, by the acknowledgment of our 
mutual dependence and its resulting sympathy, by the humane 
and cordial cooperation of employer, employee, manager, 
farmer, capitalist, and ruler for the common good can we solve 
the unhappy and deep-seated problems now surrounding us and 
maintain our high position in the civilized world. When pas- 
sion, class antagonisms, and selfishness give way to the convic- 
tion that industrial war, whatever the immediate result, means 
mutual disaster, the sober common sense and enlightened judg- 
ment of the common people will peacefully but effectually 
solve our difficulties and tide us over all domestic crises. 
Civilization Is not a creation but an evolution. It Is the fruit 
of spontaneous cooperation continuing through centuries. Vio- 
lence can destroy but can not promote it. Thrift and produc- 
tion are its corner stones. I trust the minds and consciences of 
all men many swiftly perceive these fundamental truths, com- 
pose their differences, and begin the old Hfe anew. 



MR. GOA^PERS' REPLY' 



You ask: 



What is the right of a. strike? If it means the right of men to quit 
private employment individually or collectively, everyone will concede it. 
No man can be made to work against his will in free America except 
he becomes a vagrant or convict. 

1 Extract from the letter of Samuel Gompers to Senator Charles S. 
Thomas, Congressional Record, January 5, 1920. 



42 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Very true. That is what labor contends. Then why are the 
miners pilloried as enemies of government. Why are they de- 
clared disloyal because they struck. You add: 

But the right to quit work essentially involves the corresponding 
right to continue at work, and one is just as sacred as the other. 

Certainly. That right is possessed by the workers. Free men 
can work or quit work for any reason or no reason. No one 
can control their labor except themselves, for it is not a com- 
modity. It is a part of their very being. Therefore the "right" 
to work or not to work is inherent in the workers themselves. 
But the idea seems to be arbitrahly to take away this natural 
right by acting as if the labor of a human being is a com- 
modity or an article of commerce. 

In the attitude of labor in peace and in war in March, 191 7, 
previously referred to, this was incorporated: 

We maintain that it is the fundamental step in preparedness for the 
Nation to set its own house in order and to establish at home justice in 
relations between men. Previous wars, for whatever purpose waged, 
developed new opportunities for exploiting wage earners. Mot only was 
there failure to recognize the necessity for protecting rights of workers 
that they might give that whole-hearted service to the country that can 
come only when every citizen enjoys rights, freedom, and opportunity, 
but under guise of national necessity labor was stripped of its means ot 
defense against enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the 
protections, the guaranties of justice, that had been achieved after ages 
of struggle. For these reasons workers have felt that no matter what 
the result of war, as wage earners they generally lost. 

Does it not appear now that the autocratic methods used dur- 
ing the war and accepted by the workers as a means to win the 
conflict are now to be continued in the interest of the em- 
ployers? It is not fair. It is not right. Can such a policy be 
defended by honest men? 

You state that "civilization is not a creation but an evolu- 
tion." 

More than 2,500 years ago the workers had their trade- 
unions. They were called collegias, and when permitted by 
law their activities were confined to sick and burial benefits. 
Wherever these collegias existed the enlightenment of the 
people was the greatest. For their ethics were adopted by the 
people as a whole. Members of these collegias 500 years before 
the Christian era declared, among other things, for the principle 
of one wife. 

Since trade-unions were first formed they have sought the 
economic advancement of humanity. Tliey were the pioneers in 
America in demanding compulsory education. Their efforts 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 43 

brought safety, sanitary, and health legislation. Their every 
aspiration has been to bring happiness into the home. In order 
to make plain the position of the American Federation of 
Labor to the whole people, a few extracts from the proceedings 
of conventions will not be out of place. They are — 
In 1887 it was declared: 

The opportunities of the American Federation of Labor are that it 
may become a grand and powerful^ organization, fulfilling its great mis- 
sion to bring the working people into the various organizations of the 
trades, to assist in the amelioration of their conditions, to raise mankind 
to a higher level, aspiring to a nobler civilization. 

In 1888 this declaration was made: 

The benefit the American Federation of Labor has been in the period 
of its existence to the toiling masses of our country is more, probably, 
than will be told before generations to come. There is scarcely a divi- 
sion of thought upon the question that the workers, being the pro- 
ducers of all the wealth of the world, should at least enjoy more of the 
results of their toil. On every hand we see fortunes amassing, elegant 
mansions and immense business houses rearing; we see the intricate 
machinery in its rotary motions the genius of man, all applied to the 
production of the wealth of the world; and yet in the face of this 
thousands of our poor, helpless brothers and sisters, strong, able-bodied, 
willing to work, unable to find it, hungry and emaciated, without suffi- 
cient to properly nourish the body or to maintain the mental balance. 
On the other hand, others bent by their long-continued drudgery and 
unrequitted toil. While these wrongs have been upon the body politic 
from ages gone by, we can yet trace the improvements in the condition 
of the people by reason of our various organizations. Wherever the 
working people have manifested their desire for improvement by or- 
ganization there, as with a magic wand, improvement has taken place. 
Wherever the v.'orking people are the poorest, most degraded, and 
miserable, there can we find the greatest lack of organization; and in 
the same degree as the basis of organization is improved, there can we 
see the greatest improvement in the material, and social condition of 
the people. 

In 1902 the convention declared : 

This session of the American Federation of Labor marks an episode 
in the progress of enlightenment unparalleled in the world's history. 
We meet in solid phalanx, regardless of creed, regardless of dogma; 
with national pride but without international prejudice. The world is 
our field of action, and man is our brother. We not only proclaim, 
under the unsullied and untarnished banner of trade unionism, but live 
the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice. Ours is an 
affiliation of men of like interests and of kindred spirit. It is the nat- 
ural growth of a sentiment for unity that binds and seals the compact 
for harmony, fidelity, and fellowship. Our cause demands that there 
is no worker so deep down in the abyss of misery and despair that we 
dare refuse to extend a helping hand in his uplifting; that there is no 
high pinnacle of grandeur to which the toiling masses should not aspire 
to attain. The trade unions are of, by, and for the wage-workers 
primarily, but there is no effort which we in our movement can make 
but what will have its beneficent salutary influence upon all our people. 
The misery of the past, the struggles of the present, and the duty of 
the future, demand that no effort be left untried, that all energy be 
exercised and opportunity taken advantage of to organize the toilers of 
our country upon the broad platform of the trade union, in full affiliation 
with the American Federation _ of Labor. The dim, dismal past, with 
all its pain and travail, must give way to the better and brighter future 
for which the workers have borne the burdens and made the sacrifices 
that the people of our time, and for all time, may be truly free. 



44 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

In 1906 it was said: 

Who can estimate or even dream of the benefits that have accrued to 
the working people through the efforts of the trade-union movement as 
embodied in the American i-ederation of Labor? What has it brought 
in the way of better homes, better food, a less number of children 
our members in the factory, mill, or shop? A wider, better, more en 
joyable, and comfortable life. Who will or can measure the work 0I 
the trade-union, either in the world of industry, in our social surround 
ings, or in moral growth? To have seen a part of this work and accom 
plishments should nerve us to still greater efforts to the future. 

In 1910 it was declared: 

Organized labor contends for the improvements of the standard of 
life, to uproot ignorance and foster education, to instill character and 
manhood and independent spirit among our people, to bring about a 
recognition of the interdependence of the modern life of man and his 
fellow man. It aims to establish a normal workday, take the children 
from the factory and the workshop and place them in the school, the 
home, and the playground. In a word, the unions of labor, recognizing 
the duty of toil, strive to educate their members, to make their homes 
more cheerful in every way, to contribute an earnest effort toward mak- 
ing life the better worth living, to avail their members of their rights 
as citizens, and to bear the duties and responsibilities and perform the 
obligations they owe to our country and our fellow men. Labor con- 
tends that in every effort to achieve its praiseworthy ends all honor- 
able and lawful means are not only commendable but should receive the 
sympathetic support of every right-thinking, progressive man. 

But the assertion made by you that "violence can destroy but 
can not promote civilization" can best be answered by refer- 
ring to a few of the incidents of violence that have benefited 
and encouraged civilization. Did not the Crusaders encourage 
Christianity? Did not the French Revolution advance civiliza- 
tion by leaps and bounds? Did not the Civil War free the 
slaves in the United States? This was violence in the extreme. 

In labor strikes there sometimes is violence. But it is not 
premeditated nor committed with the consent of the trade- 
unions. There is always more or less violence between indi- 
viduals, whether strikes are in progress or there is industrial 
peace. 

Did not the Great War decide that men and governments 
should be free to work out their own destiny in a lawful way? 
Did not its outcome make for civilization? While we still feel 
its effects and the people have not been restored to their normal 
state of civilization, they will be advanced many years at a 
jump because of it. 

Man is combative, and yet you must know that there is no 
factor in all our country so potent to decrease or prevent vio- 
lence as the much misunderstood and misrepresented organized 
labor movement of America. A greater crowd will follow a 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 45 

prize fighter through the streets than will gather to see a public 
official or man of great learning. Individual passions will find 
vent no matter whether there are strikes or industrial peace. 
Men who have led restrained lives can not realize the effect of 
red blood in healthy, energetic workingmen. Some men would 
rather fight than eat. When war comes the pacifists are not 
found among their numbers. It was to the credit of the United 
States that in the Great War the young men of our country 
were fighters. Take the right to fight for what is good away 
from our people and we will become a nation of pacifists. Look 
at China, a nation of pacifists. There are no strikes in China. 
Wages are very low, as they are fixed to suit the employer. 
The worker has nothing to say about them. 

Labor men find that in most cases those who oppose the 
activities of the trade-unions do not appreciate that the worker 
is just as anxious for a better economic life as any other 
citizen who may or may not have to work. 

Only those who have worked in the mines know the hard- 
ships endured by the miners. I would venture to say that if 
each Senator of the United States would become a miner for 
a year he would not only come out strongly in favor of their 
strikes, but would place the blame for the walkout where it 
belonged — on the coal operators. 

WHAT STRIKES HAVE COST THE MINERS^ 

Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who seems hungry for world-wide 
peace, might well devote a few of his millions to the promotion 
of industrial peace at home, suggests the Des Moines Register 
and Leader, calling attention to the published figures showing 
that in the past eleven years the United Mine Workers of 
America have paid over $8,000,000 in strike benefits. This 
"amazing aggregate," vouched for by no less an authority than 
Mr. Thomas L. Lewis, who recently retired from the presidency 
of the Mine Workers, "represents only a small portion of the 
cost of miners' strikes," continues the Des Moines paper; "the 
loss to industry amounts to vastly more than that, and the loss 
to the country at large is bej^ond computation." It was in ad- 

1 Literary Digest. 42:295-6. February 18, igii. 



46 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

vising his associates against continuing a pending strike, notes 
the Augusta Chronicle, that President Lewis reminded them of 
the large cost of former troubles. These are his figures: 

1900 $144,462.50 

1901 202,202.71 

1902 1.834,506.53 

1903 r 301,922.44 

1904 1.065,435-47 

1905 753,626.02 

1906 805,599.92 

1907 105,045.57 

1908 744,897.19 

1909 600,267.39 

1910 1,532,020.42 

Total $8,089,986. 16 

These sums were contributed from their daily wages by 
miners who were working, to support others who were on 
strike, The Chronicle reminds us, and it goes on to say a word 
about the cost and profit of strikes : 

"The miners have gained concessions, consisting in increased wages 
and improved conditions, during the past ten years, by striking. It is 
probable that they have gained more than has any other class of or- 
ganized labor by that process, but it would be interesting to know just 
how the concessions they have gained check against the cost of the 
methods used in gaining them. It would probably be found that the 
strikers paid pretty dearly for what they got. 

"The outlay in strike benetfis does not include the loss in time and 
wages, the suffering and hardships, the long periods of idleness, fre- 
quently in midwinter, endured by the miners, most of whom are very 
poor. Strikes as a rule are unprofitable. Most of the unions have 
abandoned them, except as last resorts, and investigation would perhaps 
demonstrate the fact that the United Mine Workers, noted for their 
big and lengthy strikes, have obtained more through negotiation than 
through strikes. 

"This is true with nearly every body of workmen. They have found 
strikes to be very expensive affairs, and diplomacy much less expenjie 
and far more effective." 



THE STRIKE BALANCE SHEET' 

There can be no authentic statement of the moral and 
economic profits and losses of the strikers and the public in 
the present unusual strike epidemic, and more's the pity. Some 
things might be settled once for all if unions, lawmakers, courts 
and all concerned could be confronted with the necessity of 
showing the soundness and utility of their policies, or going 
into bankruptcy, like insolvents among partnerships and cor- 
porations. It is practicable, however, to put together the profits 
and losses of individual strikes and to ask whether they pay. 

1 New York Times, April 18, 1920. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 47 

Governor Allen says that in thirty-three months there was 
an average of eleven strikes a month in Kansas. The miners 
lost wages of $1,800,000 and expended $157,000 in union dues 
and fines. The credit against this debit was $778.84. Only 
the details are new. It is an old record that the strike method 
of righting labor's wrongs is financially expensive, but there is 
a moral credit on the public's balance sheet, through the es- 
tablishment of a method of arriving at justice in industrial re- 
lations which never could have been had if the miners had not 
put themselves so helplessly in the wrong. The Kansas strikers 
demanded recognition for themselves, but refused to recognize 
the industrial court of the state, because, they said, it "was 
founded to enslave the workingman." The first decision of this 
court was to order an advance of wages of 7^ cents an hour 
against an offer of a 2-cent increase. 

The current railway strike and the recent coal strike, it is 
estimated, have added $300,000,000 to the deficit in the earn- 
ings of the railways for which the government is responsible, 
which the taxpayers must make good. That is only the be- 
ginning of a statement of the losses of the public, and the loss 
in wages by the strikers in this neighborhood alone amounts 
to scores of millions. If they had gained instead of lost their 
strike, it would have taken the increase of many months' earn- 
ings to put the strikers where they were before they struck. 
But, as in Kansas, the moral losses to the unions are the pub- 
lic profits against the incoveniences of the strike. These strikes 
on a national scale are "outlaw" strikes, on the unions' own 
statements. They are "mob movements," in the words of one 
union president, and there should be "no compromise with the 
insurgents." The unionists must see that the enemy has in- 
flicted a great loss on them. This poison in the union vitals 
will be fatal unless the antidote of union descipline is ad- ' 
ministered forthwith. The danger is recognized, but the remedy 
is withheld. So far as known, no outlaw has been expelled 
from union membership. 

When these labor movements are viewed in the mass in- 
stead of detail the debits to the public and the strikers are 
amazing. A cable message to The Times last week declared 
that there were pending in. England demands of increases of 
wages totaling nearly a half billion dollars at the normal rate 
of exchange. How can the strikers hope to extract this sum 



48 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

from industry from which they have taken 34,000,000 work 
days, or three times as many as in 1913, and when the out- 
put per man who worked is demonstrably below easy capacity? 
The cable brings from France a statement that the boon of 
the eight-hour day to the workers has resulted in such a re- 
duction of output, by various percentages from 20 per cent, 
to 50 per cent., that it is not possible to employ enough more 
men to maintain production. The Dominion reports that there 
was a strike for each working day in 1919, and that the work 
days lost numbered 3,942,189, against the previous maximum 
of 2,046,650. There has been the same loss of efficiency among 
the workers and of decrease in production in this country. 
How can labor fail to see that the starvation of industry 
reacts against sluggards and strikers by lessening the amount of 
goods to be divided, and making it impossible for the distri- 
bution to the individual to be increased? There is no more 
dangerous shortage than of coal, and yet the miners made 
holidays of the first four days of the month. In Pennsylvania 
in the metal trades alone in 1919 there was a loss of $4,420,434 
in wages and of 1,723,561 working days. The loss of output 
was more serious, but it is not known. In 1919 an incomplete 
list tabulated losses of wages by strikes of $723,478,300, and of 
industrial losses, not labor's, of $1,266,357,450. This at a time 
of the highest wages and most extravagant expenditures by 
workers ever known. The moral losses to labor are inesti- 
mable. 



EXPENSIVE IDLENESS' 

Strikes and lockouts in 1919 cost the United States 143,- 
850,000 days of production. To make up for this loss 4,800,000 
men would have to work a month. A plant employing 1,000 
workers would be able to offset this loss in about 450 years. 

The direct loss of wages was close to a billion. Indirectly, 
through restriction of supply and the consequent higher prices, 
this idleness is to be charged with an additional indeterminate 
sum of no mean proportions. 

The labor disturbances of the past year were in part the re- 
sult of grievances which had arisen during the war. The first 

1 Editorial, Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 7, 1920. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 49 

six months of the American participation had been marked by 
an unusual amount of strife. A rigorous government poUcy and 
appeals to labor on patriotic grounds kept the year 1918 singu- 
larly free from serious disputes. But the signing of the 
armistice and the loss of morale that came with the end of 
hostilities threw into the year 1919 nine of the most serious 
labor disputes the country has ever experienced. 

From this latest compilation of strike statistics there 
emerges one hopeful sign for the future. Violence in the dis- 
turbances is diminishing. It is attributed by the bureau of 
labor to the fact that fewer employers have tried to operate 
their plants by employing strike breakers. The fact of prohibi- 
tion has also unquestionably been an important influence. 

We cannot afford strikes even if they are peaceful. The 
country is now paying in part in the high costs of food, of 
clothing and of house rent for the strikes and lockouts of last 
year. Some means must be found for bringing the employers 
and the employed together before tremendous losses are in- 
curred by both. The zone of conflict can be greatly reduced if 
the human side of the problem is not forgotten. 

Despite the complex machinery for the settlement of dis- 
putes, the national industrial conference board has found- that 
more strikes are ended through private conferences than in 
any other way. The president's recent industrial commis- 
sion made recommendations directed toward the same end. 

WHAT THESE STRIKES COST YOU IN 
MONEY' 

This has been the greatest strike year in the history of the 
United States. During the twelve months following Armistice 
there were more than three times as many strikes as in the 
same period four years earlier. * * * 

A strike is like a pebble thrown into a pool of water. The 
loss it causes in wages to the strikers and in profits to their 
employers is only the first small circle in the series of larger 
and larger ones, which spread and widen until they reach the 
uttermost boundaries of the pool. 

It is impossible for any strike to take place in modern in- 
dustry without causing these innumerable and widening circles 

1 Roger W. Babson. American Magazine. 89:9. February, 1920. 



so COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of loss. In the two months mentioned — August and Septem- 
ber, igig — I have records of strikes involving ninety different 
trades. 

Not only did the strikers lose their wages and the employers 
lose their profits, but the country did not get the goods which 
should have been produced. Of course, we the consumers, kept 
the money we should have paid for these goods if they had 
been made. But not for long! Because we had to pay more 
for what we did get because of the scarcity. 

To give you some idea of what this loss was — and remem- 
ber this is only the second of those circles of loss — here is a 
table showing the approximate number of employees affect- 
ed in some of the strikes and the average number of days of 
idleness resulting (The steel strike is not included, although 
it began in September.) : 

Number of 

Employees Days 

Industries Affected Lost 

Metal trades 49,iS0 1,081,300 

Shipbuilding 50,000 1,100,000 

Coal mining 10,000 220,000 

Textiles 50,250 1,105,500 

Lumber 2,000 44,000 

Clothing 16,000 352,000 

Hats 3,250 71,500 

Shoes 3,500 77,000 

Railroads 1,750 38,500 

Foods 1,550 34,100 

Public Service 2,550 56,100 

Building Trades 45,000 990,000 

Retail coal 500 1 1,000 

Water transportation . . 1,200 26,400 

Paper 750 16,500 

Rubber 4,000 88,000 

Laundries 250 S.soo 

Tobacco 4,250 93,500 

Publishing 1,200 26,400 

Just to show you the effect of this idleness, here are figures 
showing the loss in production in a few of the above indus- 
tries during only nine months : 

Industries Amount of Production Lost 

Coal mining 1,751,740 tons bituminous 

_ ^ ., , 1,048,740 tons anthracite 

Retail coal 616,300 tons undelivered 

cu 88,000 machine-made women's hats 

^•1°^® 1,768,800 pairs men's 

Garment trade 15,886,500 men's shirts 

T , 19,183,800 pairs overalls 

Lumber 8,294,000 board feet 

This decrease in prodtiction directly affects you in two ways : 
Because of it you actually have less — and you pay more for 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 51 

what you do have. But for the strikes there would have been 
about two milHon more pairs of men's shoes, for example, an 
item not to be Hghtly regarded. 

But here is another feature of the situation which must be 
taken into account: There were threatened strikes and partial 
cessations of work which did not reach the stage of an actual 
walkout. This is forcibly illustrated by a report of the Secre- 
tary of Labor for a previous year. During a period when there 
were 281 actual strikes, he refers to 212 additional controversies. 
These controversies closely parallel the strikes themselves. 
And while they do not cause as great a loss in production they 
do very materially reduce the output. This must not be omit- 
ted in calculating the direct loss. 

All of these direct losses, however, form only the smallest 
of the circles which widen around a strike. Here is another 
one: If a strike takes place in an industry, it reacts on every 
other industry that contributes in any way to it. 

For instance, a strike in the garment trades reacts on the 
textile mills — the makers of silks, velvets, woolens, cotton 
fabrics may be forced to quit work. 

A strike in the shoe factories reaches back to the leather 
workers, the tanneries, the makers of chemicals, the shops 
where shoe machinery is manufactured. A printing strike re- 
acts on the paper-mill workers and the ink makers. A build- 
ing strike cuts down the work for countless other employ- 
ees in a score of trades — metal workers, lumber producers, 
employees in cement mills, in brick yards, in tool factories. 

For every day of idleness caused in a plant that is on strike, 
there is another day of idleness caused by the resulting loss of 
work to other men and women who would normally be busy 
making materials to be used in that plant. And their loss is not 
made up, even though the strikers win. 

And a strike involves not only the direct producers of these 
materials, but every person concerned in selling them and in 
transporting them. The loss is felt at every step. 

This is the backward reaction of a strike. But it does not 
complete the story, by any means. There is also what we may 
call the forward reaction. For example, a strike in the textile 
mills affects every industry which must have these textiles in 
order to continue. It slows up the garment trades. It may 
cause some of these shops to close, throwing their own work- 



53 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ers out of employment. Not only that, but it increases the cost 
of all textiles, even those already manufactured, because the 
supply is reduced. This is immediately reflected in the in- 
creased price of clothing. 

The cost of a serious coal strike is almost beyond computa- 
tion. Practically every industry in the country pays part of 
the price. If plants are shut down for lack of fuel, every 
worker in those plants can charge the coal strike with so many 
days' wages, his wages. It has cost him a new pair of shoes, 
or a new suit, or a sack of flour, in addition to making his 
own winter supply of coal scantier and more expensive. 

You might think that a street-car strike would not have this 
particular reaction, but just think it over. Take a subway 
strike in New York City, for instance : Hundreds of thousands 
of workers are unable to reach their shops, or stores, or offices. 
They may lose only an hour or two, or they may lose a whole 
day of work. And lost work is lost money! For work means 
production. And reduced production inevitably means increased 
cost of living. 

For example, here is one of many outside losses caused by 
the printing strike in New York City: Some of the shops 
closed had a large business in printing catalogues for com- 
mercial firms. It is the custom of some of t^ese firms to de- 
pend almost wholly on these catalogues to sell their goods. 

The whole manufacturing program of hundreds of these 
concerns was held up because they could not get out their cata- 
logues. It is estimated that these firms employ over 500,000 
people, and indirectly give work to 1,000,000 others. Thus, the 
strike of onh' a few thousand men in one industry affected 
1,500,000 in other lines of production. And remember that 
back of this 1,500,000 are still more men and women whose work 
and earnings suffered. 

It is these indirect losses which make the cost of strikes 
so tremendous. They go out in endless ramifications, which 
finally reach into the pockets of practically every one of us. 
Everybody has some loss to make up because of them. And 
when everybody starts to make up losses, the level of all costs 
rises. 

Take the harbor strike in New York City in October: 
perishable food, which could not be delivered, and which there- 
fore spoiled, was a total loss to the shippers, or the consignees, 
as the case might be. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 53 

Take the harbor strike in New York City in October: 
Perishable food, which could not be delivered, and which 
therefore spoiled, was a total loss to the shippers, or the con- 
signees, as the case might be. 

In the third week of this strike, the shipping authorities 
estimated that it was costing $1,500,000 a day! And this was 
aside from the expense of maintenance and interference with 
other branches of business. There were 625 vessels tied up 
in the port of New York. Many of these idle ships, tied up 
to the docks, were costing their owners from $300 to $1,000 
a day for dock rental. This was in addition to money paid 
out for idle officers and crews, and the other expenses which 
went right on, without any income to offset them. 

Here is just one curious instance of the way strikes affect 
you in ways you do not suspect: Because of the tie-up of 
shipping, the supply of quinine ran short, and there was 
great anxiety over this shortage in case the influenza epi- 
demic broke out again. Many other drugs were scarce for 
the same reason, and higher prices for them were predicted. 
Over $3,000,000 worth of essential oils were held up, and 
many of them became very scarce. 

Building materials were delayed, with the result that con- 
tractors lost money, workmen were idle, and the construc- 
tion of new houses, stores, and offices — the only solution of 
the high-rent problem — was held back. 

As another illustration of how these circles of loss widen 
out, let us take the police strike in Boston: 

The striking police force numbered about 1,200, m.en. If 
we suppose that these policemen have families, taking the 
usual average of five members, there were 6,000 persons 
directly aflFected in that one group. But this is only a starter. 
In the second circle, those indirectly affected, we find the 
5,000 state guardsmen who were called out to take the places 
of the policemen. 

Most of the guardsmen have dependents of their own. 
But even suppose that the employers of these men continued 
to pay them while they were on duty in Boston, thus pre- 
venting their families from suffering. As a matter of fact, 
many of the men did lose work or pay, and a fund of around 
$1,000,000 was raised by public subscription to care for those 
dependent on them. 



54 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

But in any case, their work was lost. Many employers 
paid men and received nothing in return. The men who had 
not been employed lost what they might have earned. xAnd 
the people as a whole were deprived of what these men 
would have produced. 

Even this does not complete the cost account. We have 
still to reckon the merchants and other business concerns 
aflfected by the absence of protection during the days of riot- 
ing. There was actual loss of property; and there was an 
even greater loss due to the disorganization of the whole 
population. That one strike has cost the people of Massa- 
chusetts at least several million dollars. 



WHERE DO THE PEOPLE COME IN ^ 

New York City's "milk strike" is ended. The milk distri- 
buters have capitulated. The farmers are to get a cent more a 
quart for their milk for the next six months. Ultimately, of 
course, the public will pay the extra cent. For that is its chief 
function and privilege as "ultimate consumer." 

For several weeks now the people of New York and sur- 
rounding towns have been sadly inconvenienced by the stop- 
page of a good share of their usual milk supply. The in- 
covenience has among the poor — who are wont to get the 
heaviest blows from any dislocation of industrial and com- 
mercial processes — risen to the point of actual suffering. 

It was not a "strike" at all. It was a refusal on the part 
of an organized group of milk producers to sell their milk ex- 
cept at an advanced price. This action met head-on the counter 
refusal of the companies who distribute the milk from door 
to door to pay the increased price. There are three great milk 
companies in New York that dominate the distributing business. 
It does not appear, so far as we are aware, that they acted 
in combination against the demands of the farmers. But for 
several weeks they continued to take the same action ; and when 
one company finally yielded, the others did the same im- 
mediately. They were in eflfect allies, even tho there were no 
articles of agreement between them. 

The public stood bj', helpless, and suffered while two 
groups in the community fought out their commercial dif- 

• Independent. 88:139. October 23, 1916. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 55 

ferences. The situation was precisely similar to that which oc- 
curs when an industrial strike takes place, with business man 
and farmer taking the place of employer and workingman. 

In both cases the method of settling the dispute is intol- 
erable. 

The interests of no group in the community are more im- 
portant than the public interest. The well-being of all should 
never be permitted to suffer because some special portion of 
the whole is seeking its own well-being in its own way. The 
public should never be put in the position of the "innocent by- 
stander" at a street fight, who often receives the severest in- 
juries. 

The welfare of the people is paramount. Of course, farm- 
ers are people as well as tillers of the soil and herders of 
cattle. Of course, also — tho it takes a little more temerity to 
assert it — the managers and stockholders of milk companies are 
people as well as distributers of a necessity of life. So their 
welfare cannot be ignored, if we would. But, after all, there 
are more people who are consumers of milk than people who 
produce it and distribute it. It is their welfare that must be 
the community's first and highest thought. 

The problem, then, is to find some method of settling dis- 
putes between producers and distributers of the necessaries of 
life that does not cause the public inconvenience and suffering. 
The community, whether it be the city, the state, or the nation, 
must compel the disputants to settle their differences peace- 
ably. It must make it its business to see that the producer ob- 
tains justice while the distributer does not suffer injustice, 
just as it must see in the industrial field that the workingman 
obtains jttstice while the employer does not suffer injustice. 



BRIEF EXCERPTS 

The public has no rights which are superior to the toiler's 
right to live and to his right to defend himself against op- 
pression. — Samuel Gompers, in a statement, June 6, 1920. 

In any basic industry, when labor and capital are at strife, 
it is not a duel but a nation-wide war, in which the public 
has the predominant interest. — New York Times {editorial) June 
20, 1920. 

It is to me a monstrous thought that capital and labor 



56 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

can without let or hindrance starve and freeze and ruin the 
people in a struggle for supremacy. — Senator Charles E. 
Townsend. Congressional Record, December 17, 1919. 

When men strike on a job they devote their minds to 
doing as little as possible in a day and doing that little as 
badly as ingenuity will devise. Almost any employer pre- 
fers an out and out strike with rioting and violence to the 
insidious crippling of the "strike on the job." — John Leitch. 
Man to Man, p. 17. 

An incomplete list of direct losses due to strikes in 1919 
places the cost to labor in wages at nearly $765,000,000 and 
to industry at more than one and one-quarter billion dollars, 
Francis H. Sisson, vice president of the Guaranty Trust Co. 
of New York, told the Silver jubilee convention of the na- 
tional association of manufacturers today. — Cleveland Plain 
Dealer, May 19, 1920. 

The evil possibilities of the boycott appear most plainly 
when we consider the boycott sometimes maintained by em- 
ployers against the employment of workmen who have made 
themselves obnoxious by activity in strikes or in the organi- 
zation of new unions. This form of boycotting is usually 
called blacklisting. — Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems, 
p. 200. 

I feel it is my duty in the public interest to declare that 
any attempt to carry out the purpose of the strike [Bitumin- 
ous coal strike of 1919] and thus to paralyze the industry of 
the country, with the consequent suffering and distress of all 
our people, must be considered a grave moral and legal wrong 
against the government and the people of the United States. 
— Statement by President Wilson. October 25, 1919. 

The essence of the boycott is the intent to injure. This 
injury may be inflicted for mere revenge, or it may be in- 
flicted with the ultimate purpose of accomplishing the most 
laudable and desirable improvement in the conditions of em- 
ployment. But in either case, say the courts, the primary 
object is injury, the intent consequently malicious, and the 
combination in turn illegal. — Adams and Stimner. Labor Prob- 
lems. (8th edition) p. 198. 

The cost of this [Switchmen's] strike, short as it has 
been, has been enormous. It cut deeply into railroad earn- 
ings and thereby will cost the government millions of dol- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 57 

lars. Hundreds of factories and mills were forced to close 
down for want of materials and thousands of workmen were 
thereby made idle. The strike has been ^11 loss and no gain. 
The switchmen have lost what it will take years to regain, 
public confidence. — Buffalo Evening News. April 19, 1920. 

The "walking delegate" is the business agent of local 
unions in the building trades. He goes about, from building 
to building to see that union rules are not being violated by 
contractors, and has power to call instant strikes on his 
own initiative. This concentration of power in the hands of 
the "walking delegate," with its opportunities for graft, has 
earned him much public reproach. — Cyclopedia of American 
Government, vol. 3, p. 638. 

Since the war we have had a perfect carnival of strikes 
in this country, some of them of huge dimensions, nearly 
all of them attended to a greater or less degree by violence 
and the destruction of propertj^ and every one of them men- 
acing, more or less seriously, every American citizen desir- 
ing to continue to work or to take the place of some of 
these men. — Senator Charles S. Thomas. Congressional Rec- 
ord, December 18, 1919. 

The charge that all but four newspapers in the United 
States are controlled by the International Typographical 
Union and that through its local chapters the union maintains 
a censorship over news unfavorable to labor was placed sud- 
denly today before the Senate committee investigating the 
shortage of newsprint paper. The man who made this start- 
ling accusation was Earl J. McCone, General Manager of the 
Charles A. Finnigan Company of Buffalo, which controls 
The Buffalo Commercial and the Hall-Richter Paper Com- 
pany. — Nevi< York Times. May 5, 1920. 

"We are out to stay until we get a readjustment in wages. 
We have been back at work for ten days and no action has 
been taken by the Labor board relative to our grievances." 
So says the local leader of the strikers. "We insist that we 
must have more money and will not work until the railroads 
see fit to give it to us." The need of adjustment of railroad 
wages was in evidence before the first strike. The strikers 
lost eleven days' pay then. Now they propose to lose more 
pay rather than continue to work for what they are getting. 
If they must have more money, how is it that they can af- 



58 COMPULSORY ARBITRATIOxX OF 

ford thus frequently to suspend work? — Buffalo Times. May I, 
1920. 

The law which we passed in the Kansas Legislature was 
not a law against union labor, and the strike which was 
brought on which caused such horrible economic waste was 
not altogether the fault of union labor; that the coal oper- 
ators, the men who owned the mines were equally guilty 
with the miners. I have seen industrial controversy waged 
in that territory for twenty-five years, and in all the indus- 
trial controversies I have witnessed I have never yet heard 
from either side one expression of comradely brotherhood, 
never. — Gov. Henry /. Allen. Laiv and Labor. 2:85. April 
1920. 

Fred G. Biedenkapp, organizer for the One Big Union 
and secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of MetaT Work- 
ers, said the other day: 

"The hour draws near for the revolution. Already are 
2,000,000 organized into the One Big Union which shall ac- 
complish the revolution. Daily our numbers grow as un- 
successful strike follows unsuccessful strike. Therefore we 
of the vision encourage strikes — that they may fail." Here 
is a candid confession of rejoicing over the failure of strikes 
which these intriguers "of the vision" themselves have pro- 
voked! — Bioffalo Currier. May 15, 1920. 

The proposed [coal] strike, if carried to its logical con- 
clusion, will paralyze transportation and industry. It will 
deprive unnumbered thousands of men who are making no 
complaint about their employment of their right to earn a 
livelihood for themselves and their families, will put cities 
in darkness, and, if continued only for a few days, will bring 
cold and hunger to millions of our people; if continued for 
a month, it will leave death and starvation in its v/ake. It 
would be a more deadly attack upon the life of the nation 
than an invading army. — Attorney General Palmer, October 
27, 1919. Laiv and Labor, i : 10. December, 1919. 

News from all directions is to the effect that the latest 
railroad strike is practically over. What an inexcusable and 
costly folly it has been. Think of the millions lost in wages, 
and the far greater losses in the interruption of the indus- 
tries, productive processes and general business of the coun- 
try, the harmful inconveniences and industrial distress! 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 59 

Then there is another item of loss amounting easily to 
$50,000,000 in the reduction of the revenues of the railroads 
— a loss which under the new federal railroad law must be 
made good by an advance of freight rates to be paid ulti- 
mately by the consumers, the mass of the people ! — Buffalo 
Currier. April 19, 1920. 

But the "neutral" in industrial warfare, like the "neutral" in 
international warfare, is securing a standing in court. In 
the recent milk strike in New York — a strike, be it observed, 
called not by the proletariat, but by capitalists, i. e., farmers, 
owners of real estate — an attempt by capitalists to fix the 
price of milk by collective bargaining, upon the ground, in- 
deed, that the farmer (a capitalist) was not earning a "liv- 
ing wage" — at the very moment that these capitalists were 
practising sabotage, overturning and emptying milk cans in 
the up-state highways, the babe in its mother's arms, depen- 
dent for its life upon this wasted milk, cried out its neutral 
protest. — /. H. Cohen in Proceedings of the Academy of Po- 
litical Science. 7: 116. January, 1917. 

The total number of labor strikers between the date of 
our declaration of war and the date of the armistice in this 
country was 2,386,285. Now, when we consider that the total 
number of men sent to France was 2,053,347, it follows that 
the army of strikers during that period exceeded the army 
of fighters during that period by about 350,000 men; and that 
was a time, Mr. President, when the energy and the labor 
of every citizen was sadly and sorely needed, when every 
impulse of duty and patriotism combined to keep the home 
fires burning, that the boys across the sea might need noth- 
ing essential to their supreme and heroic task, notwithstand- 
ing which these are the ^appalling figures. — Senator Charles S. 
Thomas. Congressional Record, December 18, 1919. 

In the course of the argument by Henry Warrum, at- 
torney for the defendants, against the continuance of the in- 
junction and the issuance of an order compelling the with- 
drawal of the strike order, the Court [Judge Anderson, U. S. 
District Court, Indiana] said: 

"The restraining order ought to be made a temporary 
injunction and a direct order to revoke the strike order 
ought to be added. Of course, if your clients don't like it 
that way, I'll make them obey it. 



6o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

"There cannot be an imperium in imperio in this coun- 
trj', as counsel for the government has said. The govern- 
ment is supreme even over a labor union, and superior to it. 

"I think this strike is about the most lawless thing I have 
seen in this country. If it goes on I think it is rebellion. 
That is what I think it is."— Lott' and Labor, i : 4. December 
1919. 

This Republic contains something like 110,000,000 men, 
women, and children. The great city of New York, per- 
haps now, with its suburbs in New Jersey and on Long Is- 
land, the largest city in the world, except it may be London, 
contains something like five or six million people. Prob- 
ably something more than one-half of that population are 
women and children, and one-tenth of that population are 
children, little babies seeking the milk bottle or their moth- 
er's breast — and under the new order of modern women, 
under the new civilization, they seek their mother's breasts 
almost in vain, and must have milk bottles. If a man comes 
to me and tells me that upon some theory or other he has 
a right to stop the transportation of milk to those babies in 
New York, I tell him when he says it that he is a self-con- 
fessed murderer of children. — Senator John Sharp Williams. 
Congressional Record, December 18, 1919. 

Hon. Elihu Root in outlining a Republican policy recently 
said: 

If we are to maintain the principles of our government 
of all the people by all the people, we must apply those prin- 
ciples now to this situation. If we are a self-governing peo- 
ple we must govern and not be governed. We should not 
attempt to make any man work against his will. We should 
not attempt to take away the right to strike. It is Labor's 
great protection. But we should by law limit the right to 
strike at the point where it comes in conflict with the com- 
munities' higher right of self-protection. No man and no 
set of men can justly claim the right to undertake the per- 
formance of a service upon which the health and life of 
others depend and then to abandon the service at will. The 
line between such a performance and an ordinary strike 
should be drawn by law. — World's Work. 39:531. April, 1920. 

This [coal] strike is an unconscionable and brutal menace 
to the happiness, the comfort, yes, the lives, of hundreds of 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 6i 

thousands of American citizens — men, women, and children 
— in no way a party to the existing controversy and in no 
manner responsible, not even in the slightest degree, for the 
conditions, actual or imaginary, which brought about this 
crisis. Thus the strike in this instance is an exhibition of 
inhuman selfishness which should awaken the indignation 
and arouse the antagonism of every right-thinking American 
citizen. Secondly, this strike, under the circumstances which 
characterized its inception, and those attendant upon its sub- 
sequent conduct, has involved such an obvious rebellion 
against the law of the land and against the authority of the 
United States government that we may well take pause to 
consider whether or not the seeds of revolution in this coun- 
try have not only been planted but that the harvesting time 
is now at hand. — Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen. Congres- 
sional Record, December 8, 1919. 

As a result of class legislation in favor of wageworkers, 
there has grown up in this country an inner government. 
It is inside of the regular or constitutional government. It 
is not an invisible government. It is very visible. It does 
not operate under the surface 01 behind the scenes. It is 
bold and open and very much aboveboard. The inner gov- 
ernment consists of combined organized labor, and it is a 
grave question if the inner government to-day is not superior 
to and more powerful than the constitutional government. 
The inner government issues edicts and makes demands, and 
in the past they have largely been honored by the constitu- 
tional government. If this is to continue constitutional gov- 
ernment can not survive. In my opinion, it is timely and 
opportune to determine whether or not this shall continue 
until it maj'^ reach the point of the utter subversion or de- 
struction of constitutional government. Shall the inner gov- 
ernment or the constitutional government rule? The time 
and the opportunity to make the test are now at hand. — Sen- 
ator Henry L. Myers. Congressional Record, December 8, 1919. 

With the growth of large labor unions, and with the in- 
crease in the resources of individual employers and groups 
of employers, the interest of the public in these industrial 
conflicts became more vital. It was soon felt that in many 
strikes the public suffered more acutely than either contest- 
ant. For instance, during the recent [1902] coal strike both 



62 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

operators and miners commanded sufficient resources to en- 
able them to hold out almost indefinitely, while the public 
would have suflfered irreparable injury and untold hardship, 
had the strike lasted but two or three months longer. A 
strike of a month's duration upon all the railroads centering 
in Chicago would not, perhaps, affect the bonds and stocks 
of the corporations more seriously than a complete failure 
of the crops, and the workmen themselves could bear the 
strain quite easily. Long before the month had elapsed, 
however, the country would be in the throes of a frightful 
crisis, and steps would probably be taken by the state or 
national government to put an end to a contest in which 
the interest of the public was not only as great as, but in- 
finitely greater than that of either combatant. — John Mitchell. 
Organized Labor, p. 337. 

The serious economic waste involved in marine and ship- 
yard strikes during the period of reconstruction has recently 
been investigated by the United States Shipping Board. 

Since the ist of January it is estimated that strikes have 
cost the Shipping Board a total of $37,000,000. There are 
included marine and harbor strikes, longshore strikes, and 
shipyard strikes. These have occurred on the Atlantic, Pa- 
cific, and Gulf coasts, but the results of the coal strike arc 
not included. 

There are not included losses by foreign or privately op- 
erated American vessels, nor indirect losses to the public 
due to interruption of regular movement of shipping. Among 
such indirect losses are those due to congestion in port, and 
on inland transportation systems, spoilage of perishable car- 
go, and delays of food supplies needed in this country and 
abroad. 

The marine strikes include that on New York Harbor 
craft, tying up some 600 boats with approximately 16,000 
men out for 13 days. A further marine strike occurred in 
July with a general tie-up of shipping on the Atlantic and 
Gulf coasts. Some 25,000 men were out for about three 
weeks. 

A longshore strike in New York during October involved 
40,000 to 50,000 men for about 30 days. A further longshore 
strike occurred at New Orleans in the same month, lasting 
31 days. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 63 

Among the 200 strikes in the shipyards one of the largest 
was that in the Northern Pacific district beginning in Jan- 
uary, lasting for 50 days and involving some 40,000 men. A 
further strike occurred in the San Francisco Bay and south- 
ern district in October, lasted 30 days and involved 3S,ooo 
men. A strike in the shipyards in the New York district 
began in October, lasted about 30 days, and involved some 
20,000 men. — Statement issued by the United States Shipping 
Board, December 6, 1919. 

In cases where strikes fail of their purpose, the American 
Federation of Labor, with a constitution providing for boy- 
cotting, has elaborate and powerful boycotting machinery 
available to each affiliated union in its efforts to enforce the 
closed shop. The Federation has a total membership [1912] 
of nearly 2,000,000 members, controlling a purchasing power 
of 10,000,000 — over a tenth of our entire population. Thi'S 
membership is enjoined to observe all boycotts under pen- 
alty of fines or expulsion, and is divided and sub-divided into 
national trade unions, some 30,000 local unions, over 500 city 
federations, and some 30 state federations. The 500 city fed- 
erations are local federations of all the unions in a particular 
city, while the state federations hold the same relation to 
all the unions in a particular state. Thus the organizers of 
the American Federation of Labor, of which there are about 
1400, and the organizers of the different trade unions, can 
at any time command the entire organized force of all labor 
unions in a city or all labor unions in a state, in their efforts 
to prevent a local dealer handling merchandise produced by 
an open shop employer. With agents in every trade center 
of the country and local federations of all trades to act at 
their commands, with travelling agents going from city to 
city, and spies to detect open shop shipments and telegraph 
the information to the unions at the place of consignment, — 
so we have a phenomenon hitherto unknown in either demo- 
cratic or despotic states, with its branches like veins through- 
out our entire society. When we reflect on the utter im^ 
possibility of escaping from the observation and tyranny of 
this movement in any remote section of the country where 
it may choose to pursue, and remember that it is largely de- 
signed and manipulated to eliminate the non-union worker 
from industry, our feelings change to alarm. All other at- 



64 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

tempts at secret orders and societies or the conduct of or- 
ganized feuds pale into insignificance before the raniihca- 
tions, power and aspirations of this institution. The idea 
staggers the imagination, for it discloses the irresistible ma- 
chinery of an army of well-disciplined men against which 
the non-conformist is helpless. — League for Industrial Rights. 
Pamphlet entitled "The Closed Shop" by W. S. Merritt. p. 5. 



STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS- IN THE UNITED STATES 



1916-1918 



Year 
1916 

1918 



Strikes 
3,678 
4.233 
3,181 



Lockouts 
108 
126 
104 



Total 11,092 338 

Monthly Labor Review. 8:1858. June, 1919. 



Total 
3.786 
4.359 
3.385 

11,430 



RESULT OF STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN THE UNITED STATES' 

In favor of employers , 

In favor of employees 

Compromised 766 

Employees returned pending arbitration 
Not reported 

Total 2,392 1,899 2,077 53 58 63 

^Monthly Labor Review. 8:1863. June, 1919. 



1916 


1917 


1918 


1918 


1917 1916 


724 


366 


417 


21 


13 S 


733 


.S8i 


591 


16 


17 IS 


766 


679 


6S9 


1 1 


21 17 


70 


131 


198 


3 


6 5 


99 


142 


212 


1 


I 21 



STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS SETTLED ^ 
UNITED STATES 1901-1905 

STRIKES LOCKOUTS 

Year S E£;-°jj Bs<«1« 6s-°g Er«t5 

1901 «,y24 149 49 88 10 2 

1902 3,162 204 58 78 It 1 

1903 3,494 246 66 154 i« 3 

1904 2,307 130 23 112 17 2 

1905 2,077 74 27 109 10 3 

Total 13.964 803 223 541 66 II 

Per Cent 100 5.75 1.6 100 12.3 a.i 

* Twenty-first [1906] Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of 
Labor, p. 85. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



6s 



I have received from L. W. Hatch, chief statistician of 
the New York state industrial commission, the following 
table of working time lost in strikes and lockouts in New 
York State for the ten years 1906-1915 inclusive: 

WORKING TIME LOST IN STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN 
NEW YORK STATE 



Year Ended 


Number of 


Aggregate days 


September 30 


strikes and lockouts 


of working time lost 


1906 


245 ■ 


1,668.281 


1907 


282 


1,724,260 


1908 


160 


396.72s 


1909 


176 


1,061,094 


1910 


250 


5,783,394 


1911 


^^s 


3,360,092 


1912 


184 


1,512,234 


1913 


268 


7,741,247 


1914 


123 


1,426,118 


191S 


104 


868,838 



This shows a total aggregate number of days of working 
time lost amounting to 24,542,283. If we assume an average 
of but $2 a day, this means a loss in this period in the state 
of New York in wages alone of $49,084,566. Julius H. Cohen. 
Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 7:122. Jan- 
uary, 1917. 



LOSSES THROUGH STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS ^ 
UNITED STATES 1881-1900 

Assistance to 
Wage loss to employees by Loss to 
employees labor organi- employers 
zations 



$3 391.097 
10,330,573 
7.343.692 
9,088,127 
11,564.421 
19.273,511 
20,794,234 
7^77,806 
11,789,408 
14.833.304 
15,685,214 
13,628,635 
[6,597.449 



894 39,168,301 



13.836.533 
11,789,152 
18,052,510 
10,917,74s 
16,643,139 
34.478,372 



$291,149 

782,007 

563,486 

721,898 

555,315 

1,671,582 

1,277,40a 

1,838,599 

707,406 

987,49s 

1,182,752 

1,371,558 

927,451 

1,091,296 

626,866 

523,520 

768,490 

632,326 

1,882,671 

1,222,987 



$1,926,443 
4,381,476 
4,993,124 
4,033,920 
4,844,370 

14,307,306 
9,518,231 
7,736,216 
3.343,877 
5,621,662 
6.793,576 
6,840,771 
4,440,615 

19,964,713 
5,656,437 
5,661,770 
5,166,731 
4,835,865 
7,822,772 

14,879,229 



Total loss 

$5,608,689 
15,494,056 
12,900,302 
13,843,94s 
16,964,106 
35,252,399 
31,589,865 
17,043,621 
15,740,691 
21,442,461 
23,661,542 
21,840,964 
21,965,515 
60,224,310 
20,119,836 
17,974,442 
23,987,731 
16,385,936 
25,688,898 
51,240,272 



Total $306,683,223 $19,626,254 $142,659,104 $468,968,581 

1 Sixteenth [1901] Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of 
Labor, p. 24. 



66 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

STRIKES IN COAL MINES i 

Year Men on strike Days lost 

1906 ZT2,lA2> 19,201,348 

1907 32,540 462,392 

1908 145,14s 5,449,938 

1909 24,763 723,634 

1910 218,493 19,250,524 

191 1 41,413 983,737 

1912 311,056 12,527,305 

1913 135,395 3,049,412 

1914 161,720 11,013,667 

1 91 5 67,190 2,467,431 

1916 170,633 3,344,586 

1917 158,360 2,311,250 



Statistical Abstract of the United States 1918, p. 275. 

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN THE UNITED STATES ^ 
1881-1905 







Average 






Days 






Duration 


■x 9. 


I- 5 


per 


^J 


1,1 


ment 


2« 


!z; 


2 0,. 



4 ^- -u z: g-| 

1881 471 6 12.7 32.2 101,070 655 130,176 

1882 454 22 21.9 105.0 120,860 4,131 158,802 

1883 478 28 20.6 56.8 122,198 20,512 170,27s 

1884 443 42 30.4 41-4 117,313 18,121 165,175 

1885 645 50 30.0 28.0 158,584 15,424 258,129 

1886 1,432 140 23.3 32.2 407,152 101,980 610,024 

1887 1,436 67 20.9 49-8 272,776 57.534 439. 3o6 

1888 906 40 20.3 74.9 103,218 13.787 162,880 

1889 1,075 36 26.2 57-5 205,068 10,471 260,290 

1890 1,833 64 24.2 73.9 285,900 19,233 373.499 

1891 1.717 69 34.9 37.8 245,042 14,116 329.953 

1892 1,298 61 23.4 72.0 163,499 30.050 238,685 

1893 1,30s 70 20.6 34.7 195,008 13,016 287,756 

1894 1,349 55 32.4 39-7 505,049 28,548 690,044 

189s 1,215 40 20.5 32.3 285,742 12,754 407,188 

1896 1,026 40 22.0 65.1 183,813 3,675 248,838 

1897 1,078 32 27.4 38.6 332,570 7,651 416,154 

1898 1,056 42 22.5 48.8 182,067 11,038 263,219 

1899 1,797 41 15-2 37-5 308,267 14,698 431.889 

1900 1,779 60 23.1 265.1 399.656 46,562 567.719 

1901 2,924 88 29.2 27.0 396,280 16,257 563,843 

1902 3,162 78 25.4 158.9 553.143 30.304 691. 507 

1903 3.494 154 29.1 53.5 531,682 112,332 787,834 

1904 2,307 112 35.5 69.4 375,754 44.908 573.81S 

1905 2,077 109 23.1 41.7 176,337 68,474 302,434 

Total 36,757 1,546 25.4 84.6 6,728,048 716,231 9,529,434 

* Twenty-first [1906] Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of 
Labor. 



PART II 

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION AND 

COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION 

OF INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



GENERAL DISCUSSION 

INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION AND ANTI- 
STRIKE LEGISLATION RELATING TO 
PUBLIC UTILITIES IN VARIOUS 
COUNTRIES ' 

The following brief summary of the conciliation and anti- 
strike provisions of the laws of various countries is compiled 
from a publication of the British Board of Trade on strikes 
and lockouts, issued in 1912, and a report of the chief in- 
spector of factories of Victoria on the antistrike legislation 
throughout the Australian States, published in 1915, verified 
by an examination of the original texts and supplemented by 
an examination of the more recent legislation. The sum- 
mary is reproduced here on account of the numerous in- 
quiries for information which have recently come to the bu- 
reau. 

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Court of conciliation 
and arbitration, consisting of a president, who is a member of the Fed- 
eral Supreme court and judges of the Federal or a State supreme court, 
appointed by the president as his deputies. Provision is also made for 
conciliation committees of equal numbers of employers and employees; 
assessors representing the parties appointed by the court to advise it 
Jknd local industrial boards, equally representative of workers and em- 
ployers, presided over by a judge of the supreme court of the Common- 
wealth or supreme courts of the States. The procedure is varied. The 
president of the court may summon parties to a dispute and by confer- 
ence aim to reach an amicable settlement, or there may be an investiga- 
tion as the basis of an amicable settlement, or temporary reference of a 
matter to a conciliation committee or local industrial board. All amicable 
settlements have the force of a formal award. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are il- 
legal. — -The initiation or continuance of any strike or lockout by any or- 
ganization or person is prohibited. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Penalty of £1,000 
($4,486.50) against any person or organization responsible for a strike 
or lockout. 

NEW SOUTH WALES 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — In New South 
Wales the law is similar to that of the Commonwealth and of Queens- 
land in that there are both an industrial court (which is a superior 
court and a court of record) and industrial boards for groups of in- 
dustries or callings, awards by the latter being subject to amendment, 
variation, or rescission by the court. 

1 Monthly Review of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 4:11-19. January, 
1917. 



70 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes and lockouts of all kinds are prohibited. An injunction 
may be issued by the industrial court. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Employer liable 
to a fine of £ 1,000 ($4,866.50); v/orker liable to a fine of £50 ($243.33), 
which is a charge on his wages. If striker was member of a union, it 
may be held liable for not exceeding £20 ($97.33) of the penalty. Pen- 
alty on union for aiding or instigating strike is £1,000 ($4,866.50). 

QUEENSLAND 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Industrial court ad- 
ministered by a judge appointed by the governor in council. Local in- 
dustrial boards are also created on the application of a prescribed num- 
ber of employers and employees. The court has jurisdiction over cer- 
tain classes of cases directly and over others on appeal from industrial 
boards. 

Conditiotis under zvhich strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — In the case of public utilities, strikes and lockouts are illegal 
unless a conference has been held before an industrial judge and proved 
abortive and unless 14 days' notice has been given after termination 
of conference and a secret ballot has been taken. In all other cases 
14 days' notice must be given and a secret ballot taken. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — A fine of £1,000 
($4,866.50) may be levied on employer or union and £50 ($243.33) on 
worker. If worker is member of a union, not to exceed £20 ($97.33) 
of the penalty may be levied against the union. Penalties are made a 
charge on wages and on funds of associations. 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — The judge of the 
industrial court brings parties together when any dispute occurs, and 
may make an award in trades where there is none in force, or may 
change an existing award. When sitting to make a final adjudication, 
two assessors, representing the respective parties to the dispute, assist 
the judge if he thinks fit. 

Conditions tinder ivhich strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are il- 
legal. — All strikes and lockouts are illegal. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — A fine of £500 
($2,433.25) may be levied against an association and a similar fine of 
£500 ($2,433.25) against a person, or three months' imprisonment. Fine 
of £20 ($97.33) or three months' imprisonment for picketing. Fines are 
made a charge against funds of associations and on wages over and 
above £2 ($9.73) a week. An employer who refuses to employ or a 
worker who refuses to accept work where there is an industrial agree- 
ment or award in operation may be fined. 

TASMANIA 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Governor appoints 
wages boards. Determination of wages boards may be suspended by the 
governor, and the boards are then required to review their action. Ap- 
peals may be taken from the wages boards to the supreme court. No 
provision is made for conciliation. 

Conditions under zvhich strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
iilegal. — All strikes and lockouts in wages boards trades on account of 
any matter as to which a determination has been reached. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — A fine of £500 
($2,433.25) may be levied against an organization and £20 ($97-33) 
against an individual. 

No legislation. 



VICTORIA 



WESTERN AUSTRALIA 

Legal fnarhincry for the adjustment of disputes. — The court of arbi- 
tration consists of a judge of the supreme court and two representatives 
from employers and employees, all three being appointed by the governor. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 71 

No provision is made for local tribunals, and matters come directly be- 
fore the court of arbitration or the presiding judge. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes and lockouts are illegal. An employer can not discharge 
a worker nor can a worker cease work (i) before a reasonable time 
has elapsed for matter to be dealt with by the court, or (2) during the 
time the proceedings in court are pending. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — A fine of £100 
($486.65) may be levied against industrial union or employer, and of 
£10 ($48.67) against worker. 

NEW ZEALAND 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — A court of arbitra- 
tion, consisting of three members appointed by the governor to serve for 
three years; one "judge of the court," to have the tenure, status, and 
emoluments of a judge of the supreme court; and one each nominated 
by unions of employers and workmen, respectively. Councils of con- 
ciliations, consisting of a conciliation commissioner appointed by the 
governor for a term of three years, to have jurisdiction within a desig- 
nated industrial district, and one to three assessors, appointed by the 
commissioner for the occasion, on the nomination of the parties apply- 
ing for a conciliation council, a like number to be appointed on the nom- 
ination of the respondents. Boards of investigation, appointed by court 
of arbitration. The procedure is for a council of conciliation, when re- 
quested, to attempt to adjust the controversy. Failing in this, the matter 
may be referred to the court of arbitration, which shall make a deter- 
mination. Disputes involving workers on the Government railways or 
affecting more than one industrial district may be brought before the 
court in the first instances by application of a union of railway employees 
in the one case and of any party to the dispute in the other. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Under the industrial conciliation and arbitration amendment of 
1908, which applies only to cases where an av/ard or an industrial agree- 
ment is in force, strikes and lockouts are prohibited. 

Under the labor disputes investigation act of 19 13, which applies 
only to cases where there is not an existing award or industrial agree- 
ment, notice must be given to the minister, who must refer matter to 
an industrial commissioner or committee. If no settlement is effected 
within ■ 14 days from delivery of notice to the minister the labor de- 
partment conducts a secret ballot, and then 7 days must elapse before 
cessation of work. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Employer liable 
to £500 ($2,433.25) fine and employee to £10 ($48.67). In the case of 
public utilities the penalty to the worker is £25 ($166.66). For en- 
couraging or instigating a strike or lockout the scale of fines is: Worker, 
£10 ($48.67); employer or union, £200 ($973.30). The wages of workers 
may be attached for fines. Penalty for striking or locking out before 
notice is given or before expiration of seven days from the secret bal- 
lot, £10 ($48.67) to a worker and £500 ($2,433.25) to employer. Wages 
of worker may be attached. 

Remarks. — At any time during the progress of a strike 5 per cent of 
the workers concerned may demand a secret ballot on any question re- 
lating to the strike. 

AUSTRIA 

Conditions under ivhich strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes and lockouts on public utilities are prohibited. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Union may be 
dissolved and funds and property seized. 

Remarks. — Before^ forming a union the organization must notify the 
Government authorities and send them a copy of the constitution and 
by-laws. The authorities may then forbid the formation of the union 
if they consider it will be dangerous to the State. 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Trade-unions of em- 
ployees of public utilities are permitted under Government supervision, 
posts, and telegraph, through official channels. 
Employees may present grievances or requests to the minister of railways, 



■72 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes and lockouts prohibited on railroads and in all forms 
of the public service (railways, postal, telegraph, and telephone service, 
all of which are under State control). 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Imprisonment or 
fine. 

Remarks. — There has been no serious strike on Belgian railroads since 
their establishment. This is due to the fact that positions on the rail- 
ways are much sought after, because of stability of employment, pensions, 
and on accotint of the prestige of being in the Government service. 

CANADA 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — The law is admin- 
istered by the minister of labor, and is under the immediate direction of 
the registrar of boards of conciliation and investigation appointed by the 
governor in council. Boards of conciliation and investigation are ap- 
pointed by the minister of labor, one member being norninated by each 
party to the dispute and the third by those two. If nominations are not 
made in due time, the minister appoints on his own motion. Jurisdic- 
tion by the minister is obtained by the request of either party for the 
appointment of a board of conciliation and investigation. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal.- — Strikes and lockouts are illegal in public utilities and mines un- 
til after an investigation by a Government board and the publication of 
its report. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — A fine ranging 
from $10 to $100 may be levied on each worker, and from $ioo to $i,ooo 
on each employer, for each day an illegal strike or lockout continues; 
also any person who encourages any employer to declare or continue a 
lockout, or any employee to go or continue on strike, illegally may be 
fined from $50 to $1,000. Penalties are not imposed by the Government 
but must be enforced by the injured party to the dispute. 

Remarks. — The object sought in publishing the report of boards of 
Investigation is to enlist the coercive force of public opinion upon the 
side of the right as found by the board. 

DENMARK 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — By a law passed 
in 1910 provision is made for the appointment of a permanent arbitration 
court of six members, selected from organizations of employers and em- 
ployees, with a president and vice-president, with qualific.itions of an 
ordinary judge. It is the duty of this court to 'make the parties to a 
dispute respect any agreement between them. A Government conciliator 
is appointed for two years. Whenever a strike or lockout is impend- 
ing (public notice being compulsory), it is his duty to intervene and 
attempt to effect a settlement. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or arc 
illegal. — Strikes or lockouts are prohibited in cases where court awards 
or trade agreements are broken. In cases where no trade agreements 
exist a strike is legal, but public notice must be given before it is 
started. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Fines. 

ENGLAND 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — There is no legal 
machinery, strictly speaking, for the adjustment of wage disputes on the 
railways, but effective machinery is in existence which is quasi official, 
consisting of an agreement between the railroads and their employees, 
which was originally negotiated by a representative of the board of 
trade in 1907. It was amended as the result of conferences and the 
report of a royal commission in 1911. These changes were the outcome 
of the railway strike in loii. By this agreement boards are created, 
with equal representation of railroads and employees, to perform the con- 
ciliation work not settled by direct negotiation between the parties. If 
a settlement can not be reached a neutral chairman or umpire, selected 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 73 

by the conciliation boards from a panel prepared by the board of trade, 
is called in, and his decision is final. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — No legislation. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — No legislation. 

Remarks. — The adjustment of disputes on other public utilities and 
in the mining industry is provided for in the conciliation act of 1896. 
Conciliators or boards of conciliation are appointed by the board _ of 
trade. Arbitrators are also appointed on the application of both parties, 
selected from panels of employers, employees, and ''persons of eminence 
and impartiality" established by the board of trade. For conciliation 
proceedings the board of trade acts on its own initiative or by the re- 
quest of either party; for arbitration, on the application of both parties. 

FRANCE 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — The only qualification as to complete freedom of action in the 
railway service is that any engineer, fireman, or trainman shall not desert 
his post_ during the progress of a journey. Postal employees and em- 
ployees in shipping service controlled by the Government are prohibited 
from striking. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Desertion of trains 
between terminals is punishalDle with imprisonment ranging from six 
months to two years. Postal and other civil employees may be dis- 
missed or suffer losses in pay. The monopoly privilege may be with- 
drawn from the shipping service on which a strike occurs. 

Remarks. — In all occupations except those mentioned the right of 
employers and employees to take concerted action in a peaceful manner 
with a view to cessation of work has been officially recognized since 
1884. On October 2, 19 10, the National Federation of Railway Em- 
ployees of France and the Federation of Unions of Railway Engineers 
and Firemen called a general strike on all the railroads of the country. 
The Government, using its full authority under military laws, called 
for a mobilization of the strikers, and ordered them to do military 
duty for three weeks. Their military duties were specified as the keep- 
ing of the railways under normal working conditions under the_ orders 
of their superior officers. This measure defeated the strike, which was 
called oil after six days. 

GERMANY 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Means for enabling 
railways workers of all groups to bring their requests and grievances to 
the notice of the authorities have been instituted by all the State rail- 
way administrations in Germany under the name of "workmen's com- 
mittees." 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes and lockouts are practically prohibited on public utilities 
There are no specific laws forbidding strikes, but rules and practices of 
railway and other public utilities administration make strikes impossible. 
About 90 per cent, of the organized railway employees belong to unions, 
the by-laws of which specifically waive all claim to the right to strike. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — No specific pen- 
alties for engaging in strikes, but workmen are forbidden to belong to 
unions which assert the right to strike. All union organizations and 
by-laws are subject to governmental sanction. The coercive force of the 
law is found in the fact that a railway employee who engaged in a strike 
would be dismissed or fail of advancement in his work. Every _ Govern- 
ment employee looks forward to attaining the status of an "official," and 
this is practically impossible if he belongs to or is known to sympathize 
with a trade-union which does not meet with Government approval. 

HOLLAND 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Delegates are se- 
lected from different groups of railway employees who are authorized 



74 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

to present the wishes and complaints of railway workers before the 
managers. Arbitration boards have been established for the enforcement 
of penalties imposed because of infractions of working rules and condi- 
tions. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes in railway service are prohibited. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Imprisonment or 
fine. 

Remarks. — Legislation prohibiting strikes was the outcome of a gen- 
eral strike in the Dutch railway service in 1903- 

ITALY 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes are prohibited in railway and public service. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Fine and loss of 
employment. 

Remarks. — Legislation relative to fines and loss of employment would 
not practically prevent strikes, because of the impossibility of enforcing 
the law upon so many individuals. The real restraining influence is the 
power of the Government to call out the reserves and compel strikers to 
resume work under military law. 

OTTOMAN EMPIRE 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — In the case of a 
dispute relative to wages or working conditions, a conciliation board is 
organized, composed of six members, three representing employers and 
three representing employees. The boards are presided over by an of- 
ficial appointed by the Government. The agreements reached by these 
boards are enforced by the Government. If the parties to the dispute 
can not agree, the employees are free to stop work, but nothing must 
be done by them opposed to freedom of action. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal.— Strikes in public utilities are unlawful until grounds of dispute 
are communicated to the Government and attempts at conciliation have 
failed. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Imprisonment or 
fine. 

Remarks. — The organization of trade-unions in establishments carry- 
ing out any public service is forbidden. 

PORTUGAL 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts arc prohibited or are 
illegal. — Illegal in public utilities until 8 to 12 days' notice has been 
given, together with a statement as to the causes for a strike. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Loss of employ- 
ment. 

Remarks. — In all services, except public utilities, strikes have been 
expressly permitted since the establishment of the Republic in 1010. 

ROUMANIA 

Conditions under which strikes anrf lockouts, are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes are prohibited in public utilities. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Imprisonment and 
loss of employment. 

Remarks. — No employee of a public utility can join a trade-union 
without the authorization of the Government. 

RUSSIA 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes are prohibited among employees of public utilities. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation.— Imprisonment and 
loss of employment. Authorities may arrest or banish strikers without 
bringing them before a court. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 75 

SPAIN 

Conditions under which strikes and lockout.' are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes are illegal in public utilities until five to eight days' 
notice is given, together with a statement as to the causes of the strike. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Leaders and of- 
ficials of labor organizations or concerted movements who do not make a 
declaration as to the causes for a strike are liable to imprisonment. 

Remarks. — In industries other than public utilities strikes are ex- 
pressly allowed provided they are not accompanied by threats or violence. 

SWITZERLAND 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — The Canton of 
Geneva has established a system of conciliation and arbitration. Concili- 
ataors are elected directly by the two parties to the dispute. If they 
can not reach a settlement, recourse is had to an arbitration board under 
Government auspices. There is no law for the settlement of disputes in 
the Federal railway service. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — Strikes are prohibited in the Federal railway service and in the 
Canton of Geneva whenever an industrial agreeinent or award is broken. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — In the Federal 
service strikers are punishable by fines and cautions. There are no pen- 
alties in the Canton of Geneva. 

Remarks. — There have been no strikes on the railways of Switzerland 
since their nationalization in 1897. 

TRANSVAAL 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — The Transvaal law 
is administered by a department of labor. Boards of investigation are 
appointed on the request of either party to a dispute. The board has the 
power of the supreme court as to securing evidence, etc., but can not 
make binding orders. Failing the adjustment of a dispute by agreement, 
the board reports to the minister of labor its recommendations, which are 
officially published and also given to the newspapers. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — In public utilities, the mining industry, and in any other industry 
to which the provisions of the act are extended by proclamation, strikes 
are unlawful until after an inquiry by a Government board and until 
one month after the publication of the board's report. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation. — Any striker is 
liable to a fine of £.10 to £50 ($48.67 to $243.33) a day, and, in de- 
fault of fine, imprisonment, or imprisonment for 3 months without the 
option of fine. Any one encouraging another to strike may be fined £50 
to £250 ($243.33 to $1,216.63) or 6 months' imprisonment. Any em- 
ployer declaring a lockout may be fined £100 to £1,000 ($486.65 to 
$4,866.50) a day, or given 12 months' imprisonment. 

Remarks. — The Transvaal law is based, as regards prevention and 
procedure, upon the Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 
1907. 

UNITED STATES 

Legal machinery for the adjustment of disputes. — Law providing for 
for conciliation and arbitration of disputes on railways which interrupt 
or threaten to interrupt the business of the employer to the detriment 
of the public interest, under the administration of a board of mediation 
and conciliation appointed by the President. The board attempts media- 
tion and conciliation, which failing, the board seeks to procure the sub- 
mission, through an agreement of the parties, of the dispute to a board 
of arbitration. Jurisdiction is obtained at the request of either party 
to a dispute, or the board may proffer its services. 

Conditions under which strikes and lockouts are prohibited or are 
illegal. — No legislation by the Federal Government. 

Penalties for enforcement of antistrike legislation, — No penalties 
against strikes. 



76 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

THE KANSAS INDUSTRIAL COURT BILL' 

Governor Henry J. Allen of Kansas called a special ses- 
sion of the Legislature on January 5, 1920, to consider a bill 
for the establishment of an industrial court for the trial and 
determination of industrial disputes arising in the food, cloth- 
ing, fuel, transportation, and public utilities industries. The 
bill was prepared under the direction of the Governor. 
Amendments introduced by the Legislature give the court 
a wider range than as originally provided. The labor lobby 
made vigorous attempts to make the court a mere instru- 
ment for voluntary arbitration. The measure became law 
about January 25th. 

The manufacture of food products, the manufacture of 
"clothing and all manner of wearing apparel in common use 
by the people," the mining or production of fuel, "the trans- 
portation of all food products and articles or substances en- 
tering into wearing apparel or fuel," and all public utilities 
and common carriers as defined by law under the general 
■statutes of Kansas, are declared to be affected with a public 
interest and therefore subject to supervision by the State 
"for the purpose of preserving the public peate, protecting 
the public health, preventing industrial strife, disorder and 
waste, and securing regular and oiderly conduct of the busi- 
nesses directly affecting the living conditions of the people." 
Any person, firm or corporation engaged in any of these in- 
dustries affected with the public interest, either as owner, 
manager or worker, is subject to the provisions of this law. 

The bill creates a Court of Industrial Relations to be com- 
posed of three judges appointed by the Governor, by and 
with the consent of the Senate. One judge shall be appoint- 
ed each year and each judge will serve for three years. The 
salary of the judges is fixed at $S,ooo a year. This Court will 
sit at Topeka, the capital of the State, and shall be a Court 
of record. The Court determines its own procedure, but 
the rules of evidence as recognized by the Supreme Court 
of the State of Kansas arc binding upon it in the taking 
of testimony. 

* Law and Labor 2:31-3- February, 1920. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES n 

The power and duties of the Public Service Commission 
are transferred to the Court and the commission abolished. 
"In case of a controversy arising between employers 
and workers, or between groups or crafts of workers, 
engaged in any of said industries (referred to above) 

* * * if it shall appear to said Court that said con- 
troversy may endanger the continuity or efficiency of ser- 
vice of any of said industries * * * or affect the produc- 
tion or transportation of the necessaries of life * * * or 
produce industrial strife, disorder or waste or endanger the 
orderly operation of such industries * * * f^u power, au- 
thority and jurisdiction are hereby granted to said Court of 
Industrial Relations upon its own initiative, to summon all 
necessary parties before it and to investigate said contro- 
versy * * * and to investigate conditions surrounding the 
workers and to consider the wages paid to labor and the re- 
turn accruing to capital, and the rights and welfare of the 
public, and all other matters affecting the conduct of said 
industries * * * and to settle and adjust all such contro- 
versies * * *." It is further made the duty of the Court 
to investigate and determine controversies upon the com- 
plaint of either party to a controversy, upon the complaint 
"of any ten citizen taxpayers of the community in which 
such industries * * * are located, or upon the complaint 
of the attorney general of the state." Upon the conclusion 
of the investigation and "as expeditiously as possible" the 
Court shall serve upon "all interested parties its findings, 
stating specifically the terms and conditions upon which 
said industry * * * should be thereafter conducted insofar 
as the matters determined by said Court are concerned." 
The Court "shall order such changes, if any, as are neces- 
sary to be made in and about the conduct of said industry 

* * * in the matter of working and living conditions, hours 
of labor, rules and practices, and a reasonable minimum wage 
or standard of wages, * * * provided, all such terms, con- 
ditions and wages shall be just and reasonable and such as 
to enable such industries * * * to produce or transport 
their products or continue their operations and thus to pro- 
mote the general welfare." The terms ordered by the Court 
"shall continue for such reasonable time as may be fixed 



78 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

by said Court, or until changed by agreement of the parties 
with the approval of the Court"; but a party complying in 
good faith with the terms of the order for sixty days or more 
and finding the order "unjust, unreasonable or impracticable" 
may apply to the Court for a modification. 

Section 9 provides: "It is hereby declared necessary for 
the promotion of the general welfare that workers engaged 
in any of said industries, employments, utilities or common 
carriers shall receive at all times a fair wage and have health- 
ful and moral surroundings while engaged in such labor; 
and that capital invested therein shall receive at all times 
a fair rate of return to the owners thereof. The right of 
every person to make his ov/n choice of employment and 
to make and carry out fair, just and reasonable contracts 
and agreements of employment, is hereby recognized. * * ♦ 

The bill gives the Court ample power to compel the at- 
tendance of witnesses and the production of books. How- 
ever, in the event that any party to a controversy fails to 
obey an order of the Court, the Court is "authorized to bring 
proper proceedings in the supreme court of the State of 
Kansas to compel compliance" and should either party to a 
controversy "feel aggrieved" at any order made and entered 
by the Court, the party is "authorized and empowered with- 
in ten days after service of such order upon it to bring proper 
proceedings in the supreme court of the State of Kansas to 
compel said Court of Industrial Relations to make and enter 
a just, reasonable and lawful order in the premises." In 
such a proceeding in the supreme court, the evidence in the 
case before the Court of Industrial Relations may be con- 
sidered by the supreme court but either party may intro- 
duce" such other evidence as the supreme court may deem 
necessary to enable it to render a just and proper judgment. 
Such a proceeding will be given precedence over other civil 
cases. Any action brought to set aside a decision of the 
Court of Industrial Relations must be brought within thirty 
days from the time the decision is rendered. 

Any union or association of workers which may incorpor- 
ate under the laws of the state, shall be recognized as a legal 
entity, and the right of such corporations to bargain col- 
lectively for their members is recognized. However, the in- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 79 

dividual members of unincorporated associations, desiring to 
bargain collectively, may appoint in writing an officer or offi- 
cers to represent them in making collective bargains, and the 
written appointment of such officers shall be made a perma- 
nent record of the union. 

It is made unlawful to discharge or discriminate against 
any employee because he testifies as a witness before the 
Court or signs any complaint or does any other thing to 
bring the attention of the Court to any controversy, or to 
combine or conspire to boycott, picket, advertise or carry 
on propaganda against any person, firm or corporation be- 
cause of any action taken under the direction of the Court 
or because the jurisdiction of the Court has been invoked. 

It is made unlawful to cease operations for the purpose 
of limiting production and transportation, to effect prices or 
to avoid the provisions of this law, but any concern may 
apply to the Court for authority to cease operation and if 
the application "shall be found in good faith and merito- 
rious," then the application shall be granted by the Court. It 
is made unlawful, individually or in combination, to do any 
act with intent "to hinder, delay, limit or suspend the opera- 
tion of any of the industries * * * or to delay, limit or 
suspend the production or transportation of the products 
of such industries * * *." However it is not unlawful for 
an individual to quit his employment at any time. 

Violation of the act is a misdemeanor punishable by a 
fine not exceeding $i,ooo or imprisonment not exceeding one 
year or both. But any officer of any corporation engaged 
in any of these industries or an official of any labor union 
employed in these industries who shall wilfully violate any 
of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a 
felony and punishable by a fine not to exceed $5,ooo or im- 
prisonment in the penitentiary at hard labor for not more 
than two years or both. 

In case of the suspension or cessation of operation of any 
of these industries contrary to the provisions of the law, 
if in the opinion of the Court it will seriously efifect the pub- 
lic welfare the Court is "directed to take proper proceedings 
in any Court of competent jurisdiction * * * ^q ^-^j^g oyej. 
control, direct, and operate said industry * * * provided, 



8o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

that a fair return shall be paid to the owners of such in- 
dustry * * * and also a fair Avage to the workers engaged 
therein during the time of such operations * * *." 

An industrial controversy in any industry not specifically 
designated by this law may be, by mutual consent in writing 
of the parties thereto, submitted to the Court, and its de- 
cision shall have the same effect as decisions in cases in 
industries specifically covered by the law. 

The findings of the Court as to minimum or standard of 
wages "shall be deemed prima facia reasonable and just" and 
such minimum or standard, shall take effect as of the time when 
the investigation of the Court leading to that finding began. 
Either party having a balance due from tlie other as a result 
of such finding may sue therefor. 

The justices of this Court are "authorized and empowered 
to make or cause to be made within the state or elsewhere such 
investigations and inquries as to industrial conditions and re- 
lations as may be profitable or necessary for the purpose of 
familiarizing themselves with industrial problems." The Court 
is directed to make an annual report covering all of its ex- 
pense and proceedings. 

THE COLORADO INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION' 

The nearest approach to the Kansas statute is an act of the 
State of Colorado, enacted in 1915, creating an industrial com- 
mission, and conferring upon it certain powers as to the ad- 
justment of industrial disputes. This act is patterned to some 
extent after the Canadian Industrial Disputes Acts, and makes 
it unlawful for employers to declare or cause a lockout, or 
for employees to go on a strike prior to or during an investiga- 
tion or arbitration of a dispute. This act received its first test 
in this regard during the coal strike of November last, a res- 
training order against the proposed strike of November 21 
being issued under it by the District Court of the City and 
County of Denver. In obedience thereto the district officers of 
the miner's union recalled their strike order, resulting, it is 
claimed, in a production of coal more nearly normal than in 
any other State of that section of the country. However, the 
union atacked the law on the ground of its claimed unconstitu- 

* Monthly Labor Review. 10:810-1. March, 1930. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 8i 

tionality, and some technical questions as to its enactment. The 
act limits its application, at least in the case of lockouts, to in- 
dustries "affected with a public interest." In its later delib- 
erations the district court, without suggestion from either party, 
injected the test of public interest into the case in hand, and 
ruled that underground mines are not affected with a public 
interest and fall outside the act. The case has been carried 
to the Supreme Court on a writ of error for a decision on this 
subject, as well as on the constitutional questions, and it will 
be of interest to know what conclusion shall be reached by 
the Court on these points. However, it seems obvious enough 
that coal mines are affected with a public interest, so that the 
main concern is with the validity of the act that undertakes to 
prevent the cessation of industrial operations on grounds of the 
public concern until suitable time for investigation has elapsed. 

Though this first legal process for enforcement has thus been 
opposed, the commission reports results of great value flowing 
from the operations of the law." Since its enactment in 1915, 
"this state has been comparatively free from labor trouble, and 
has been absolutely free from any protracted strike; and blood- 
shed, violence, and the destruction of property have been un- 
known." 

The law requires 30 days' notice before a strike or lockout 
is actually engaged in; and this provision, "against which 
violent criticism has been directed, has saved the situation in- 
numerable times." This period permits opportunity for con- 
ciliator>' efforts, which have many times been successful. If 
this fails, informal conferences often afford a means of arriv- 
ing at an understanding; while in other cases, formal hear- 
ings and awards are resorted to. From March, 191 7, when the 
present commission took office, up to November i, 1918, the 
commission handled controversies involving 1,430 employers 
and 28,888 employees. There were 196 cases reported to the 
commission, of which 145 were reported with the statutory 30 
days' notice ; 32 resulted in strikes of from i to 65 days' 
duration, but all were settled, men returning to work. The 
record is believed to show "ample justification for the enact- 
ment and continued existence of the law," which all interests 
"are coming to view as a step in the right direction." 

* Second Report of the Industrial Commission of Colorado, 1917-18, 
p. 98-iai. 



82 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

THE AUSTRALLVN SYSTEM OF DEALING 
WITH LABOR DISPUTES^ 

The Australian system of dealing with labor disputes and 
of the regulation of labor conditions has passed through many 
changes. Different states, each with full power of self-govern- 
ment, have from time to time altered and amended their laws 
according to experience. In New Zealand, for instance, the 
Industry Disputes Act has been amended in some way on an 
average of once every two years since the year 1900. In New 
South Wales, existing legislation has on three occasions been 
practically repealed, and entirely new laws have been passed. 
But in all the states there is a striking uniformity of essentials. 
The whole industrial system is based on the principle that the 
relationship of employer and employe is a matter of grave so- 
cial concern that justifies interference by some centralized 
authorities. In other words, freedom of contract is not now 
unlimited but can only operate within certain areas prescribed 
by law. The desire of parliaments has always been to make 
this Interference between employer and workman as small as 
possible, and the result has been that practically all indus- 
tries work today only above minima which are from time to 
time prescribed, and during certain hours that are fixed by law. 

To understand the Australian system it is necessary to real- 
ize that the country generally has accepted three definite in- 
dustrial claims as now beyond dispute. We start off in the 
new era of reconstruction with concessions finally guaranteed 
that are the subject of controversy in other countries. These 
three fundamentals, as I might call them, are as follows: 

1. The recognition of the fullest right of workmen to organize for their 
own protection, and the right of each union to make the collective 
bargain for the industry that it represents. 

2. The recognition of the eight-hour day. 

3. The recognition of the principle of the living wage in all indus- 
tries — that is, the drawing of a line below which competition in the 
labor market is illegal, but above which ordinary economic forces 
come into play. 

These three concessions have been the result of our system 
of industrial arbitration. This system has been arrived at by 
two different methods which have gradually converged. Two 
states adopted what is known as the wages board system, all 

1 George Beeby, Minister of Labor for New South Wales, in Survey. 
42:399-401. June 7, 1919. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 83 

the others, what can more accurately be described as judicial 
arbitration. 

The wages board system contained the minimum element of 
compulsion. Under it the government of the day had power, 
within certain limits, to appoint a wages board for an indus- 
try. This board generally consisted of about six workmen and 
six employers who selected their own chairman, with provi- 
sion that the government could provide a chairman in the event 
of failure of mutual selection. These boards were authorized to 
declare a minimum standard for the industry on hours, mini- 
mum wages and the conditions attached to juvenile labor. 
They originally applied only to certain industries in which 
women and children were largely employed, such as garment 
making, manufacture of confectionery and similar occupations; 
but they were gradually extended, and in the states which had 
adopted this system all manufacturing industries gradually 
came under regulation. The finding of the board became a 
common rule for the industry, and any employer working be- 
low the standard fixed was liable to cash penalties. That sys- 
tem, however, did not in any way interfere with the rights of 
the workmen to take part in a strike or in any other legal 
way to force a better bargain for his trade. 

One of these states which originally adopted wages boards 
abandoned the scheme and now works under the system of 
judicial arbitration. The wages board system today operates 
only in one state, Victoria, and its awards generally conform 
to the standards fixed by the arbitration courts. The judicial 
system was adopted originally in. New Zealand and ultimately, 
with variations, by the states of New South Wales, South 
Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. It leads to the 
ultimate settlement of all industrial disputes by a court es- 
pecially appointed, generally consisting of a single judge. In 
some cases the judge sits with assessors representing the two 
interests, but in nine cases out of ten the ultimate decision rests 
with the judge. These judges operating in these states and in 
the federal area conduct proceedings much on the same lines 
as those of a civil court. The parties become litigants, they 
file claims and replies, issues are joined, advocates are engaged, 
and elaborate inquiries in open court are held, evidence being 
called in support of cases, in the reply, in rejoinder, in rebuttal; 
and in every way the paraphernalia of a court is maintained. 



84 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Ultimately the decision is left to the judge whose award, when 
made, becomes the standard for the industry. 

Today there is a strong movement for a complete change 
of this system. It is frankly admitted by both sides that its 
effect has been to keep workmen and employers apart, that a 
vast amount of work done by the courts could be done by 
voluntary conciliation and equally satisfactory results reached. 
The movement in Australia today is towards investigation of 
industrial troubles by negotiation rather than by litigation. 

New Zealand has already altered its law and makes it dif- 
ficult for the arbitration court to deal with the case. Before 
it can get to the court it must be dealt with by a special body 
appointed for a district or appointed for each individual dis- 
pute. In every way the parties are urged and encouraged to 
arrive at their own agreements, but in the background the court 
exists to deal with the cases of violent controversy, particularly 
in industries of a national character. 

In New South Wales a recent law provides for the appoint- 
ment of a board of trade. This board of trade consisting of 
representatives of employers and workmen in equal numbers, 
with a judge of the industrial court acting as president, is en- 
trusted with the following, among its other duties : 

1. The fixing from year to year of the basic living wage applicable to 
all adult male and female labor. (This function does not in any 
way prevent arbitration courts from fixing minima for particular in- 
dustries. It only restricts them from going below the basic living 
wage.) 

2. The appointment of industrial councils for industries. 

3. The appointment of shop committees for individual workshops. 

4. The general encouragement of a system of industrial organization 
on the lines of the Whitley scheme. 

5. The holding of inquiries on important industrial matters of universal 
interest, and the recommendation to Parliament from time to time 
of legislation. 

6. The absolute control of the conditions under which juvenile labor 
can be employed. 

The idea of this act is gradually to transfer the whole sys- 
tem of industrial regulation from judges and industrial courts to 
these industrial councils and shop committees. 

Power is also given to the government to utilize the indus- 
trial councils in any future provision which may be made for 
unemployment insurance. There is strong opposition to main- 
tenance of any highly centralized fund dealing with insurance 
against employment and equalization of wage pay. It is thought 
that great problem will be more effectively dealt with if power 
is given to the government to subsidize any fund which may 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 85 

be raised in any industrial council for the purpose of unem- 
ployment insurance. 

It must be remembered that a real effort is being made 
throughout the commonwealth today to move by stages from 
the old system of industrial arbitration to a system based 
somewhat on the Whitley scheme. The legislation is so framed 
as to give the minister of the day ample power to encourage 
in every way this program of bringing employers and work- 
men into close touch; but the idea of maintaining some tribunal 
which in the end can fix minimum standards for an industry 
in the event of the failure of negotiations, is maintained. With 
all its faults, the general opinion among employers is that in 
these days of perpetual industrial unrest it is essential to have 
some tribunal before which parties in violent dispute can be 
called, and to force them to adjust their differences. Work- 
men today are not favorable to compulsory arbitration. They 
believe that they could have achieved bigger results by the free 
use of the strike weapon and claim that restrictions on the right 
to strike have held them back. There is some basis for this 
objection from their point of view. Arbitration has largely 
improved the standards of unskilled labor and of those clas- 
ses of workmen who in the past have found it difficult to 
organize. The lower grades of labor clearly have received 
very definite benefits from the system, but the skilled mechanic, 
with the perpetual restriction placed on his right to strike, has 
not improved his standards in the same proportion. That is 
to say, the relative difference between skilled and unskilled 
labor is not as great today as it was before the systems were 
adopted. 

These limitations on the power to strike have not in any 
way saved us from serious dislocations. Workmen strike freely 
in Australia, in spite of the law, and no law can check them. 
But constant public investigation of industrial disputes has had 
a very restrictive effect. It has prevented and has shortened 
many strikes. All proceedings in the past have been in open 
court, and the pubHc has become rather intimately acquainted 
with the nature of industrial relations. Workmen, except those 
who are revolutionary in tendency, are often engaged in analyz- 
ing the important question whether an industry can stand some 
increase which is proposed and, generally, the whole system has 
been of great educational value. Its main weakness, however, 
has been that it has prevented negotiation and has kept employ- 



86 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ers and workmen in two definite, hostile camps, always ready 
to litigate but rarely in the mood for conciliation. 

It must be remembered that the national parliament, Con- 
gress as you call it, has some power over industrial matters. 
The federal constitution provides that parliament can legislate 
for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extend- 
ing beyond the limits of any one state. In pursuance of this 
power, the federal court of arbitration has been set up, and any 
dispute which gets beyond the boundary of one state can be, 
and often is, determined by this federal court. The court, how- 
ever, is constituted verj^ much on the same lines as those of dif- 
ferent states and generally adopts the same principles in many 
awards. The tendency is for unions, if possible, to make their 
disputes go beyond the state boundary. They prefer the federal 
tribunal to that of the states. But in this court the learned 
judge who is today its president has not gone to any material 
extent above the standards generally recognized by these state 
tribunals. He has laid down one general guiding principle, and 
the duty of his court is not to regulate the detailed workings of 
an industry but merely to provide for the fixing of a reasonable 
standard of living in the industry, leaving the complete manage- 
ment of the business in the hands of the emplo}'er and his rep- 
resentatives. 

There has been much comment by emplo3^ers from time to 
time on different awards. There has been considerable opposi- 
tion to the whole system, but this has gradually disappeared. 
Very few employers today ask for a complete repeal of our in- 
dustrial legislation. They welcome public investigation of 
claims made, and they agree that in a young country which is 
building up its manufacturing industries it is better that all em- 
ployers should be put upon the same footing. No employer in 
Australia can now obtain an advantage by the use of cheap 
labor. It is true also, as the employers state, that the fixing of 
the minimum wage for the industry has tended to inefficiency, 
but employers are not without blame in this, when wages fixed 
have been only minima. Most employers at the outset, directly 
a wage was fixed, petulantly announced that all their employes 
in the future would get the same wage and abolished the varia- 
tions which previously existed. The result of this general ap- 
plication of the minimum as a standard wage undoubtedly led 
expert workmen to come down to somewhere near the level of 
the average man. During recent years, however, many employ- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 87 

ers have accepted the awards of the court only as minima and 
have higher wages in order to get higher results. 

There is also a very strong movement today to try to intro- 
duce systems of payment on piece-work and payment by results, 
but this is bitterly resisted by unionism. It is thought that the 
industrial councils will probably be able to bring about some 
change in this direction. In the shipbuilding industry, recently 
commenced, the New South Wales government has succeeded in 
getting mechanics, particularly those engaged in riveting, to 
work on a piece-work basis, with proper guarantees that in- 
creased output will not lead to reduction of piece-work rates, 
and also with the provision that workmen shall not injure them- 
selves by going beyond the ordinary eight-hour day's work, ex- 
cept in cases of emergency. The result of this change was that 
the output of riveters per man was on an average doubled with- 
in a few weeks, and it is anticipated that even better results can 
be obtained without injury to workmen. 

I discussed the whole of this question with the Associated 
chambers of manufacturers of Australia some weeks ago, and 
the gathering unanimously agreed to the following propositions : 

That a minimum standard of comfort prescribed by law was not in- 
jurious to them, so long as the detailed management of the business 
was left entirely to their own judgment. 

That the eight-hour law, particularly in all industries in which men 
worked under cover, or in connection with machinery, should be uni 
versally established. 

That the time had arrived for a joint responsibility of the govern- 
ment, the employer, and the workman, to provide effective means 
of insurance against unemployment, sickness and accident. 
That as a last resort it was best, in the interests of the state, to 
maintain some authoritative system of settlement of industrial dis- 
putes in all important industries. 

That standardized conditions for the whole commonwealth, as to the 
condition of employment of juvenile labor, were advisable. 

I venture to summarize the situation as follows : Australia 
will continue to maintain the three fundamentals mentioned in 
the beginning of this statement. 

It will continue to maintain some tribunals which will have 
power as a court of ultimate resort to make an award in settle- 
ment of industrial disputes which will be binding on the parties. 
But these tribunals will probably consist more of industrial 
councils, and access to them will be more difficult. There will 
also be created industrial councils for industries and shop com- 
mittees for individual establishments. And all parties will be 
compelled to negotiate in these councils on all matters affecting 
industries before they will get access to a compulsory tribunal. 



88 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

A definite movement will before long be made in the direc- 
tion of unemployment insurance, but will, I think, be on the 
lines already indicated; that is, the industrial council will be- 
come responsible for the creation and maintenance of the fund 
for its particular industry — this fund being liberally subsidized 
from the public purse. Industrial records of individual work- 
men will be kept, and gradually those who are unworthy will be 
scheduled and not allowed to participate in any insurance fund. 

The general control of the whole scheme of industrial reg- 
ulation will, I think, beyond doubt before very long be cen- 
tralized in the national government. There is a strong move- 
ment today which is rapidly reaching a climax to vest this im- 
portant function in a national authority on the understanding 
that it uses the state machinery now in existence. Some uni- 
formity is essential. There is considerable conflict today be- 
tween different state systems and the federal system, and both 
employers and workmen are in agreement that it would be better 
to take the industrial power from the hands of state parliaments 
and invest it in Congress. 



PART III 

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 
INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION 



COMPULSORY ARBITRATION ' 

Strikes are a serious injury to the public, cause enormous 
losses to employers and employees, and often accomplish nothing 
for the strikers beyond blacklisting and the loss of opportunity 
to earn a living. What is the remedy? Cooperation will abol- 
ish strikes, because employers, as a separate class antagonistic 
to labor, will disappear and the workers will become their own 
employers. But cooperation does not promise an}'- immediate 
relief ; it is growing very slowly, and cannot be relied on as a 
present solution. Aside from cooperation, the equitable methods 
of avoiding strikes are two : voluntary settlement by conciliation 
or mediation; and compulsory settlement in courts having juris- 
diction of industrial questions under statutory regulations of 
labor and capital, or under the general principles of justice and 
equity. 

Since voluntary methods do not accomplish the Avork, and 
there is no immediate prospect of their doing so, it is clear that 
at present and probably for this generation the question is sim- 
ply, strikes or labor courts. Let us examine the leading argu- 
ments that may be advanced on each side of the question. 

I. Where mediation and conciliation fail, compulsory arbi- 
tration is demanded in the interests of peace, — industrial, polit- 
ical, and social peace. Violence and destruction are frequent 
accompaniments of strikes. Here are a few of the facts : 

Massachusetts railroad strike, 1834 ; riots, militia called out 
to suppress the disturbance. 

Philadelphia weavers, 1842; very disorderly. 

Philadelphia brickmakers, 1843 >* much rioting and destruc- 
tion of property. 

Great railroad strike, 1877; rioting and burning, troops over- 
powered by mobs, twelve men killed at Baltimore and man}' 
more at Pittsburg, millions of property destroyed. 

* By Frank Parsons. Arena. 17: 663. March, 1897. 



92 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Gould railroad strike, 1886; violence and destruction. 

New York street-car strike, 1889; riotous conduct, one 
striker shot. 

Buffalo strike, 1892; riots, troops, bloodshed, entire State 
militia called out. 

Homestead strike, 1892, riots, Pinkerton's battle, many lives 
lost; much property destroyed, forty non-union men poisoned 
at their meals. 

Coal Creek Valley miners, strike, Tennessee, 1892 ; fighting 
and burning. State troops called out. 

Silk workers' strike, Paterson, N. ]., 1894; rioting and mob 
violence. 

Great coal miners' strike in eleven states and one territory-, 
1894; whole counties terrorized, strikers intrenched in open in- 
surrection, much property destroyed, troops powerless to pre- 
serve order, shooting, eviction, dynamite assassination, kidnap- 
ping, torture, pitched battles, many lives lost. 

Chicago strike, 1894; mobs, riots, troops, loss of life and 
property. 

Brooklyn street-car strike, 1895 ; rioting and destruction. 

Philadelphia street-car strike, 1895 ; some disturbance and 
destruction. 

One of the objects of the federal Constitution is to "insure 
domestic tranquillity." Surely that object cannot be considered 
accomplished until law is substituted for force in the settlement 
of labor troubles. Even when rioting does not occur, the dan- 
ger of violence that is incident to every great industrial dispute 
is in itself a mighty influence for evil. If the parties will not 
voluntarily adopt a method of settlement that does not threaten 
the public peace, they must be compelled to adopt it. The public 
good is the supreme law. 

2. Justice demands that law be substituted for force as a 
means of deciding labor troubles, not merely for the sake of 
peace and safety, protection of life and property, and securing 
the business of the community from interruption or hindrance, 
but also for the sake of fairer and more reasonable settlements 
between the parties and the infusion of equity into all the rela- 
tions of labor and capital. 

Very often the claims of workmen who strike are wholly 
just, and few cases can be found in which their claims were not 
just in part at the least. Almost always there is a real griev- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 93 

ance that ought to be redressed, yet in the majority of cases the 
strikers are defeated, and fail to obtain rcHef; not uncommonly 
indeed they are severely punished for venturing to ask for jus- 
tice, all who were known to have been active in the strike being 
discharged and blacklisted, and the rest being less favorably 
treated than before the strike, to teach them to be quiet in the 
future, and very Hkely discharged on the slightest pretext and 
replaced by non-union men. 

The Pullman affair is a good illustration of the failure of 
strikes to secure justice for the workers. The demands of the 
men were for the most part fair and reasonable ; public sym- 
pathy was with them; their cause was backed by a tremendous 
sympathetic strike on the railways ; yet the struggle brought 
them no redress, nothing but loss. 

At the time of the Philadelphia street-car strike in 1895, the 
men were working twelve to fourteen hours a day for $2, were 
unprotected from the weather, and were refused recognition as 
an organization. They struck for a ten-hour day, vestibules, 
and recognition. Public sympathy was all on their side. Every 
paper in the city espoused their cause, except one, which was 
controlled by traction interests. Immense meetings of citizens 
were held, and committees of prominent men were appointed to 
intercede with the companies. Yet the strike entirely failed to 
secure the workers anything but loss, discharge, and blacklisting. 

The recent strike of conductors and motormen in Boston is 
another illustration of the ineffectiveness of strikes. The men 
were being worked over ten hours a day in violation of law, 
they were subject to arbitrary discharge at the whim of any 
petty boss, and in case of accident were laid off one, three, 
sometimes seven or eight days during the investigation of the 
matter, and were obliged to lose this time whether they proved 
faultless in respect to the accident or not. The demand of the 
men for better treatment in these respects was eminenth' just, 
and the public approved their cause, but they failed to obtain 
relief. The strike was not well managed, but, judging by ex- 
perience in Philadelphia and in other cities, it is very improbable 
that the men would have secured their rights even if they had 
conducted the battle with all possible skill. 

The terrible Coal Creek Valley strike was a revolt against 
the employment of convict labor in the mines. The strikers 
were conquered by the troops and gained no recognition of the 



94 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

very just demand that the practice of farming out prisoners to 
corporations should cease. The strike did something however 
toward bringing the Tennessee system into disrepute. 

One of the demands of the telegraphers' strike of 1883 was 
that women should receive the same pay as men for the same 
work. Another was for the abolition of Sunday work without 
extra pay; and another for an eight-hour day. The strike 
failed, and these just demands were not complied with. 

The record of strikes by no means covers the field of in- 
justice to labor ; in innumerable cases the workers suffer in 
silence, knowing the costliness and futility of strikes. In many 
of these cases redress might very likely be obtained if a peace- 
ful appeal to a court of justice were permitted. 

Let sixty per cent of the workers affected by any griev- 
ance have the right to bring the matter into court on show- 
ing that reasonable effort in the direction of conciliation and 
voluntary arbitration has been made and has failed to afford 
redress. If either employers or employed do not desire to 
leave the decision with the court, let the workers choose one 
arbitrator, the employees another, and these two a third, 
subject to the approval of court, (which represents the in- 
terests of the community) ; let the award of this board of 
arbitrators stand on the same footing as a judgment of the 
court and be enforced in the same way. Do this and make 
strikes unlawful, and you have gone a great way toward 
substituting reason for might in deciding the rights of labor 
and capital. 

Not only the workers and the general public would be 
benefited, but there would be a corresponding gain to capital, 
which is also a heavy loser by strikes, and does at times 
submit to imposition and grant unjust demands rather than 
risk the consequence of a rupture. This is especially apt to 
be so where employees take advantage of the fact that their 
employers are under contract with third persons to perform 
a given service in a specified time. 

In whatever way it is regarded, judgment by court is a 
better means of arriving at justice and equity than judgment 
by wager of battle. In respect to justice the decision of an 
impartial tribunal will have the same superiority over private 
settlement by conflict in the case of disputes between cor- 
porations and their employees as in case of disputes between 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 95 

man and man, or state and state. Heat and passion, 
greed and strength, are not the champions of equity. The 
prize ring does not concern itself with right. The battlefield 
is not the place to look for justice. 

The federal Constitution reflects the thought and experi- 
ence of the civilized world in the statement that the first 
object of government is "to establish justice." Surely gov- 
ernments instituted to establish justice should endeavor to 
prevent the continuance of anything so inimical to justice as 
the strike. And if society takes from labor what is often 
to-day its sole defense against capitalistic aggression, — if 
society forbids the strike, as indeed it does already through 
the injunction of its Federal courts whenever the combat 
threatens to hinder the mails or interfere with interstate 
commerce, — then it is surely the duty of society to give to 
labor another means of defense as good or better than the 
one that it has taken away; and the only method of doing 
this at the present stage of social development is to establish 
industrial arbitration, with the power of the law behind it to 
enforce whatever decisions may be rendered. 

3. Economy demands the arbitrament of law in place of 
the arbitrament of conflict. In the railway strike of 1877 the 
loss to property and business inflicted by the mob at Pitts- 
burg alone is estimated at $5,000,000, and the county of Alle- 
gheny was compelled to pay $2,787,000 of the loss sustained 
during the Pittsburg riots. The Chicago strike cost the 
railways $5,358,000, and the employees $1,700,000, a total of 
$7,058,000, not including the loss to the Pullman Company. 
The National Commission says that "beyond these amounts 
very great losses, widely distributed, were incidentally suf- 
fered throughout the country." The California fruit-growers, 
for example, lost $50,000 a day. The total loss which re- 
sulted from that one strike, in all probability exceeded 
$10,000,000. The telegraph strike of 1883 cost the companies 
$909,000, and the men $250,000. The railway strike on the 
"Gould system" in 1886 cost the strikers $900,000, those 
thrown out of employment by their action $500,000, and the 
railroads, $3,180,000. 

For the strikes that occurred from 1881 to 1886, inclusive, 
the wage loss by the employees is estimated by the United 
States Commissioner of Labor at $51,814,000, and the em- 



96 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ployers' losses are estimated by the same authority at 
$30,701,000. And the trouble is not growing less as the 
years go by. From 1741 to 1880, inclusive, there were 1,491 
strikes and lockouts, while for the six years ending Decem- 
ber 31, 1886, the number of strikes alone was 3,902, — forty 
a year for the first period, and over six hundred and fifty a 
year for the second. Making all due allowance for fuller 
reporting of strikes in the later period, the contrast is still 
a startling one. 

Surely it is cheaper as well as more just to settle by court 
than by strike. At present we pay for the strike first; then 
we pay for a commission to examine into its causes and re- 
sults; let us have the inquiry first and save the expense of 
the strike. 

4. Manhood also demands arbitration instead of war. 
Conflict debases both the victor and the victim. Every time 
deliberation is substituted for passion and force, a gain for 
character-development is made. 

5. It will modify and limit the despotic powers, of un- 
scrupulous corporations, and so tend to prevent oppression, 
ameliorate the condition of labor, and secure a better dif- 
fusion of wealth. 

6. It will tend to secure the stability of our republic and 
the perpetuity of free institutions, by efifecting greater har- 
mony in the relations of employers and employed, and 
eliminating some of the injustices, antagonisms, and conflicts 
that cause the development of dangerous animosities be- 
tween labor and capital, and feed the growth of anarchy. 

7. The argument from history and the trend of civiliza- 
tion. The tendency of advancing civilization is all in the 
direction of substituting the compulsion of courts of justice 
for other private compulsion of individuals or groups of in- 
dividuals. In primitive times the settlement of disputes of 
every sort was a private matter. If one man wronged 
another, or a disagreement arose as to rights, the parties 
fought out the difficulty alone, or with such help as their 
friends might grant. Men early found that this method did 
not insure justice and was inimical to the public peace, so 
they established courts of justice, with power to compel the 
arbitration of disputes, in order that their decisions might be 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 97 

by cool, impartial intelligence, instead of by heat and pas- 
sion, strength and cunning. 

We compel the arbitration of disputes between man and 
man, between States, between individuals and States, and 
we are about to establish a court of arbitration for the settle- 
ment of disputes between nation and nation, but disputes be- 
tween a corporation and its employees are left to the prim- 
itive method of barbaric conflict. 

Under the treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain, we are trying to do away with war between nation 
and naticTn by creating an International Court of Arbitration. 
When the chief nations of the world come into the move- 
ment, send their representatives, and stand behind its de- 
crees, we shall have compulsory arbitration of national dif- 
ficulties by means of judicial decision in a court of recog- 
nized authority, instead of compulsory arbitration by war. 
That is an object worthy the earnest efforts of the highest 
statesmanship; but is it not equally incumbent upon our 
statesmen to make an effort to abolish civil war between 
great corporations and their employees by establishing 
courts to arbitrate their differences? 

Common sense demands the application to industrial dis- 
putes of the same principles that are applied to other dis- 
putes. If A and B get to fighting in the street they are 
brought before a court of justice and informed that they 
have subjected themselves to ihe penalties of the law; that 
as long as they remain in civilized society thej^ will not be 
allowed to settle their difficulties by battle; that courts are 
established on purpose to do justice between them; and that 
if they cannot agree they may appeal to the courts, but must 
not resort to combat. Why should a corporation and its 
employes be permitted to fight out their quarrels in the 
streets to the disturbance of the peace, the interference with 
business, the destruction of life and property, and the 
annihilation of justice? Every reason that applies in the 
former case for putting decision by court in the place of de- 
cision by force, applies in the latter with redoubled force. 

If A and B cannot be left to fight out their quarrels, nor 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New 
York, Turkey and Armenia, Great Britain and the United 
States, — if individuals and states and nations must submit 



98 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

to compulsory arbitration for the sake of peace and justice 
and liberty, why should a corporation and its employees be 
permitted to settle their quarrels by war in the heart of a 
giant city? 

The substitution of peaceful, impartial, and intelligent jus- 
tice for the turmoil, injustice and destructiveness of private 
conflict is one of the distinguishing marks of a high civiliza- 
tion. It is time we extended the idea of the impartial admin- 
istration of justice to the sphere of industrial difficulties. 
Compulsory arbitration of labor disputes means simply the 
extension of the control of law and order over a field which, 
up to the present time, has been left to chaos. 

8. Experience in France, Belgium and New Zealand 
shows that compulsory arbitration of labor difficulties is a 
marked success in practice, a success that need not be afraid 
of comparison with the results of administering justice by 
tribunal in other relations of life usually subjected to judicial 
regulation in civilized communities. 

In France and Belgium compulsory arbitration has been 
for years an assured and successful fact; and in 1894 a strong 
compulsory arbitration law was adopted in New Zealand, 
the most progressive, in many respects, of all the British 
colonies. In England the laws of 1824 and 1837 provided for 
compulsory arbitration in certain cases, but the laws were 
not comprehensive enough to be really useful. 

The most famous examples of tribunals established by 
law for the compulsory arbitration of labor troubles are the 
French "Conseils des Prud'hommes." The parties may sub- 
mit their differences to arbitration voluntarily. If they do 
not, then, after an. attempt to reach an agreement has failed, 
the tribunal compels arbitration, and the award is enforced 
the same as the judgment of aiij^ other court of law. 

Each council consists of eight members or more, elected 
for three years — half elected by the workmen in its jurisdic- 
tion, and half by the employers. Every question is within 
the compulsory jurisdiction except future rates of wages, 
which are only within the voluntary jurisdiction. As we 
shall see later, there is no valid reason why the compulsory 
jurisdiction may not be extended to the wage-rate; but even 
without it, there is a vast work left for compulsory arbitra- 
tion to do In France 88 per cent of the cases failing of con- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 103 

law, those, namely, which constitute a title of contract law ■ 
called "unilateral contracts." 

In any case, if they do not stay, it is clear the wages are 
too low, and the employer must raise them if he wishes to 
keep his men. The court merely fixes the limit below which 
the emplo}^er must not go. He may pay more, must pay 
more if his workmen find they can do better elsewhere. 
There is no substantial lack of mutuality. The employer 
is not compelled to continue doing business, and the em- 
ployee is not compelled to continue working. 

If the employer cannot make the business pay at the 
wages demanded, beca,use of low wages in his business else- 
where, or for other cause beyond his control, he should 
bring his books and his evidence into court and prove the 
fact, and the court will be careful not to put the wage-rate 
where it would destroy the employer's business, recommend- 
ing, if need be, such general legislation as would affect the 
whole trade and lift Avages to a proper level without injus- 
tice to individual employers. 

In dealing with monopolies, such as gas and electric 
plants, street railways, and other quasi-public industries, this 
difficulty will not in most cases be apt to rise. The adjust- 
ment of wages would not be complicated by questions of 
competition. 

No method short of cooperation can deal with the wage 
question in a fully satisfactory manner. Compulsory arbi- 
tration is simply the best method attainable until coopera- 
tion comes. 

3. It is said that governmental fixing of rates and wages 
amounts to confiscation; that conciliation and mediation are 
better than compulsory arbitration; that a court or commis- 
sion can be empoAvered to examine the cause and justice of 
each industrial dispute at its inception, fix the responsibility, 
and leave public opinion to compel redress; that, whatever 
may be thought of the general philosophy of individual lib- 
erty, and its limitation by law, the right of free contract is 
a settled principle in our jurisprudence, and an employer has 
a right to fix the terms on which he will employ labor, with- 
out dictation from anyone; that compulsory arbitration will 
entail recognition of trades unions and the right to continued 
employment; and that it will delay more vital reforms by 



104 COMPULSORY ARBITRyVTION OF 

alleviating to some extent the discontent of labor. To these 
and other objections the curious may find an answer in the 
American Fabian for March, 1897. 

On the whole, it appears to the writer, that a strong in- 
dustrial jurisdiction will be of great advantage in preventing 
strikes and, in many cases, lockouts also, in bringing em- 
ployers and employed together in mutual conference and 
equality instead of in the relation of servitude, in promoting 
mutual confidence and respect, and in preparing the way for 
a nobler industrial system than any the world has yet seen. 



ADDRESS OF WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE TO 
THE KANSAS LEGISLATURE, JANUARY, 1920 

Every age, every century and within these modern times, 
every decade, sees some business or interest formerly con- 
sidered private business or private interest taken over in the 
public interest. Two hundred years ago when a gentleman 
had a quarrel with another gentleman it was supposed to be 
a private quarrel which should be settled under a private 
code called "dueling," but too many interested bystanders 
were injured and dueling was stopped. 

What was once a gentleman's right, a very private per- 
sonal right became a public matter, nnd dueling was stopped 
in the interest of the public. Time was when a quarrel be- 
tween a slave and his master was a private matter and the 
master had private rights with his slave. That was stopped. 
Time was when a man's money invested in bank stocks or 
railroads was considered private money. It was considered 
private infringement of private rights to interfere with that 
money, but government afifected all money invested in banks 
and public utilities with public interests and regulated and 
controlled that money in the interest of the public and took 
away personal rights for the public good. 

The pirate's right was once a private right, but that right 
was removed for the public good, and now when labor and 
capital engage in a brawl which threatens daily processes of 
civilization we are taking away the right to that brawl and 
_sayms t^^ quarrel must be settled in public interest. 

Now, the chief interest which the public has in this 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 105 

quarrel between labor and capital is the interest of justice to 
each. Government demands that every man participating in 
government shall do so intelligently. To do so intelligently 
he must have time and opportunity in his youth for an edu- 
cation, leisure in his manhood for information and reflection 
and steady employment to teach him habits of thrift and give 
him a stake' in the country. 

The public in establishing wages will be interested, not in 
labor as a commodity, but in labor as a citizen, and in ten 
years the labor unions will look back to this step of the 
Kansas legislature as the day that heralded the emancipation 
of American labor. The public is interested in capital 
chiefly, to see that capital gets justice, that it has a fair re- 
turn and a profit sufficiently large to encourage enterprise, 
which is our God-given gift, the gift which distinguishes 
America from all the world, and by trusting to the public, 
that is to say, trusting to the organized forces of society in 
government, to adjudicate wages, capital will find a just and 
equitable bureau, or court, or commission, or what you will, 
and in ten years capital will regard this day as the beginning 
of a new era in its organization. 

We are not trying to throttle capital and labor in Kansas, 
but to emancipate them from their own strangle hold upon 
each other, and to establish an equitable and living relation 
between them. 



THE CUMMINS' BILL' 

I have now, with one exception, completed my explana- 
tion of the bill before the Senate. That exception is the 
part of the bill which proposes that the government shall 
adjudicate the disputes which may arise between employees 
of railway companies and the corporations, and which for- 
bids a conspiracy or combination for the purpose of prevent- 
ing the movement of commodities in interstate commerce, 

I venture to say that no provision in any bill submitted 
to Congress in recent years has been more generally dis- 
cussed throughout the country than the one to which I have 
just referred. There are some very extravagant praises for 

1 Speech of Hon. A. B. Cummins in the United States Senate, Decem- 
ber 4, 1919. 



io6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

it; there are some very unjust denunciations of it. I look 
upon it as a vital part not only of this bill but a vital part 
of our policy in the future so far as the basic industries of 
America are concerned. The committee has endeavored to 
find a solution of one of the most complicated and difficult 
problems ever presented to a legislative body. I am not 
prepared to affirm that the committee has discovered the 
only solution, and I am sure its members w^ill be very glad 
to receive from senators any suggestions that may make 
the arrangement which we have provided for more just or 
more efficient; but I speak for substantially every member of 
the committee, a very large majority of the committee, when 
I say that it is our profound conviction that the civilization 
of America — J was about to say the civilization of the world 
— can not continue, can not endure unless organized society 
can find some plan to preserve industrial peace and order. 
To me tt^e thought that to accomplish justice for those who 
may be interested in any dispute it is necessary to either 
freeze or starve the American people is unthinkable and in- 
tolerable. 

I have always, I believe, entertained for men who worked 
not sympathy — for men who .work need no sympathy — but 
I believe that I have always held for them the keenest in- 
terest in the struggles in which they have been engaged and 
the most sanguine hope of their ultimate success in obtain- 
ing the justice to which I believe they are entitled. But that 
does not settle this controversy. 

Look at the situation now. I received a telegram this 
morning from one of the important cities in my state in 
which it was stated that the schools had all been closed; 
that the churches had all been closed; that every industrial 
enterprise had ceased — and it is a city of 25,000 people or 
more — and that if relief were not given in furnishing fuel 
before Saturday night there would be hundreds of homes in 
the community without heat. Our government is a failure 
if there can be found no way to surmount an obstacle of 
that kind; our government is worse than a failure if we 
can not in some way preserve the continuity and the regu- 
larity with which our basic operations are carried on. 

The committee were deeply impressed with that feeling 
and v/e recognized that transportation is the basic industry 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 107 

of the nation. It may not be more important from one as- 
pect than many others, but none of the others can be con- 
ducted or carried on without transportation. Leave New 
York without transportation for two weeks and thousands 
of people v/ill either starve or freeze, according to the sea- 
son; indeed, they may do both. What I say of New York is 
true of Philadelphia, of Chicago, and of every great center 
of population. 

We can not contemplate that situation with any com- 
placency at all. If we can not find some way in which to 
avoid a contingency of that kind, then our boasted and 
vaunted institutions are mere shadows, and we should es- 
cape from them as speedily as possible. There must be 
some way in which a democracy can administer justice to 
all its citizens, which will render them so far content that 
they will be Avilling to carry on their vocations with reason- 
able regularity and continuity. 

Mr. President, I was the author of a somewhat famous 
statement or declaration in what is known as the Clayton 
anti-trust law that the labor of a human being is neither 
a commodity nor an article of commerce. I believed in the 
truth of that statement profoundly then, and I believe in it 
now with even deeper conviction. The labor of a human 
being is not a commodity; it ought not to be dealt with as 
a commodity; it ought not to be judged as a commodity; 
for it is a part of human energy that may solicit and ought 
to recive the same high consideration from the world, from 
every legislative body, as all other energies of the mind or 
the body. But I am just as much opposed to Mr. Foster 
dealing with human labor as a commodity as I am opposed 
to Mr. Gary dealing with it as a commodity. 

It is just as fatal to the welfare of the United States to 
allow the American Federation of Labor to deal with labor 
as a commodity or as an article of commerce as it is to 
allow the National Association of Manufacturers to deal with 
it as an article of commerce or as a commodity. This dec- 
laration, for which I make no apology and of which I am 
as proud as I am of any other act of my life, means that 
labor is to be lifted above the rules which apply to mere in- 
animate things; it means that the laborer is a man and en- 
titled to the rights of a man, and that he should no more 



io8 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

sell himself to a labor union than he should sell himself to a 
manufacturer. It applies to both and all with equal force 
and strength. 

I do not want to be understood that I am opposed to 
labor unions. On the contrary, I think they are an essential 
pan of our industrial organization. I do not believe that 
we could long survive in peace and in order without labor 
unions. I think the gathering together of men in every oc- 
cupation is not only defensible but I think it is highly bene- 
ficial and helpful in the maintenance of law and order. The 
laboring men in any particular enterprise or in any particu- 
lar calling have just as much right to come together and 
work to promote their own interests and lift themselves up, 
if they can, in the great scale of human society as have the 
men of capital or the men of the professions, the men who 
labor, as it is said, with their minds instead of with their 
hands. I do not want it to be understood that there is in 
this bill or that there is in my mind any antipathy, any hos- 
tility, anything but admiration for labor unions. 

I believe also in collective bargaining. There is no es- 
cape from collective bargaining. It is the decree of this age 
from which we ought not to attempt to escape. This bill is 
founded upon the necessity for labor unions, so far as the 
provisions to which I now have reference are concerned. 
It could not operate without the presence of labor unions. 
This bill recognizes collective bargaining; it can not be ad- 
ministered efficiently without collective bargaining. 

I have said so much because there has been an indus- 
trious effort to misrepresent the bill. I have been amazed 
when I have read some of the lying reports which have 
been circulated throughout the country with respect to the 
objects which this bill seeks to attain, and I am saying what 
I have said to do what little I can do to overtake these 
gross and malicious misrepresentations. 

It is said — it has been said to our committee — that this 
provision of the bill contravenes the natural rights of man, 
and is therefore unconstitutional. It is a very common thing 
to hear it said that this manacles the workingman, puts 
shackles upon his limbs, and reduces him to involuntary 
servitude. Nothing could be more wicked than an assertion 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 109 

of that character. This bill does not interfere with the right 
of any employee of a railroad company or any official of 
any railroad company, because this bill applies equally to 
every person who serves a common carrier, if the common 
carrier is subject to the act to regulate commerce. The bill 
does not prevent, interfere with, or embarrass any man who 
desires to leave his employment. He can quit, or a hundred 
of them or a thousand of them can quit whenever they de- 
sire so to do. But I am not willing to allow the statement 
to go unchallenged that it is a fundamental and a constitu- 
tional right that every man can enjoy to quit his employ- 
ment whenever he pleases. That is not true. 

This bill does not interfere with his right at all; but a 
soldier can not quit whenever he desires. He can not cease 
his employment. An engineer upon a railway train can not 
quit whenever he may desire to quit. He can not leave his 
engine and his train so that human life would be imperiled, 
or so that property, even, might be injured. A physician or 
surgeon can not quit his employment whenever he may de- 
sire to quit, either morally or legally. He can not leave a 
dangerous operation half performed because it is his plea- 
sure no longer to continue the work of his profession. I am 
mentioning these things simply to show that it is not true, 
broadly and fundamentally, that every man in the world can 
quit what he is doing at any moment he chooses to quit. 
The human right — and I am now speaking of the individual 
right rather than the group right — is subject to higher con- 
siderations than his pleasure. 

Mr. THOMAS. I hope the Senator will not omit, in the 
category of obligations that he is now giving, to include men 
who are working under time contracts, whether collectively 
or individually. 

Mr. CUMMINS. Quite true. That would not have oc- 
curred to me, but the observation is a very just one. I am 
mentioning these things not because they are material to the 
bill, for we do not attempt in the bill to interfere with the 
right of any employee of any railway company or any man- 
ager of any railway company to cease his employment when- 
ever he individually may desire to do it, but I grow tired 
sometimes of hearing these broad generalizations which are 



no COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

so cheerfully made by those who want to relieve the human 
being of all responsibility to society. We owe something to 
our fellow men, and, as the President of the United States 
has just said, that is the dominant duty that falls upon every 
conscious, responsible human being. 

It is well worth while to read what the President has just 
said upon this subject. I am not altogether sure that I un- 
derstand his reference, but I think I do, and if anybody 
here diflfers from me in that respect I hope he will make it 
known at this time. 

The President, in the message which was delivered day 

before yesterday to the Congress of the United States, said, 

among other things: 

Labor not only is entitled to an adequate wage, but capital should 
receive a reasonable return upon its investment and is entitled to pro- 
tection at the hands of the Government in every emergency. No govern- 
ment worthy of the name can "play" these elements against each other, 
for there is a mutuality of interest between them which the Govern- 
ment must seek to express and to safeguard at all cost. 

Truer words were never penned, a more timely warning 
to our industrial society was never given than in the lan- 
guage I have just read. 

But I proceed: 

The right of individuals to strike to inviolate and ought not to be 
interfered with by any process of government; but there is a predomi- 
nant right, and that is the right of the Government to protect all of its 
people and to assert its power and majesty against the challenge of 
any class. The Government, when it asserts that right, seeks not to 
antagonize a class but simply to defend the right of the whole people as 
against the irreparable harm and injury that might be done by the at- 
tempt of any class to usurp a power that only Government itself has 
a right to exercise as a protection to all. 

If I understand correctly the passage I have just read, 
it states views which every good citizen of the United States 
ought to entertain, and it expresses my own convictions with 
absolute accuracy. * * * 



I think, though, that the program suggested two or three 
years ago was not complete. I may not remember it accu- 
rately, but it seems to me that the proposition then was that 
the strike should be prohibited for a time, pending an in- 
vestigation with regard to the merits of the dispute, and that 
after the investigation was had, no matter what the outcome 
of the investigation might be, then the right to strike was 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES iii 

resumed and might be exercised at any time. That has been 
tried in our sister republic at the north. Canada has tried 
that plan, and I am bound to say that my examination of 
the history of the legislation and of its administration has 
not been reassuring. 

This bill proposes to take away the right to strike at any 
time. 

Mr. MYERS. Mr. President, if a right is inviolate, how 
can there be any predominant right? 

Mr. CUMMINS. Mr. President, I am not going to an- 
alyze the exact phraseology of the message from which I 
have read and subject it to any such critical analysis. I be- 
lieve that the President meant, when he penned those words 
and sent the message to us, that the right to strike must be 
subordinate to the welfare of the great body of the people, 
and that when the strike involved the interests of all the 
people, it must give way to some other plan for the adjust- 
ment of a dispute. 

This bill punishes only a combination or agreement be- 
tween railway employees, and when I use the word "em- 
ployees" I mean all the employees of the corporation, what- 
ever their rank may be. Even if I were to grant that the 
individual right to cease employment or quit is perfect and 
complete, I could not grant that the right to enter into a 
combination or conspiracy to accomplish a purpose inimical 
to the welfare of society is a natural or constitutional right. 
This bill does not control the individual, but it controls the 
combination, the agreement, and it declares that if two or 
more persons, being employees of a carrier subject to the 
act to regulate commerce, shall enter into an agreement or 
a combination to suspend or prevent the movement in inter- 
state commerce of commodities on which we are all depend- 
ent for life and for health for the purpose of enforcing some 
demand or claim against their employer, that such persons 
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished ac- 
cordingly. 

What right have I, who may believe I have a just claim 
against you, to enter into a conspiracy or combination or 
agreement with some other man or with some other men to 



112 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

deprive you of the necessaries of life until you yield to the 
demand which I have made upon you? It is monstrous. It 
can not be defended in any court of morals. A course of 
that kind can not be defended in any court of civilization 
and progre-ss. 

Mark yon, I do not believe that the right of strike should 
be taken away from the employees without substituting some- 
thing better in its stead. So long as it is a mere conflict 
between the employees and the employer, I would permit, 
of course, as this bill permits, a strike. The loss that might 
be imposed upon the employer does not greatly concern so- 
ciety, and there is no disposition on the part of the com- 
mittee, I am sure, to interfere with a conflict of that char- 
acter. It is only when the conflict, this endeavor to impose 
loss upon the employer, becomes destructive of society, of 
the welfare of the great body of the people, that this bill 
proposes to intervene and make it impossible. 

I do not intend, Mr. President, to read the provisions, but 
I want to emphasize two things: First, the bill provides what 
it believes to be impartial tribunals for the adjudication of 
all disputes between the carriers and their employees. These 
tribunals, the details of which I shall not discuss at this 
moment, have jurisdiction of all the disputes which may 
come up from time to time between the railway corpora- 
tions and their employees. Bear in mind that we have at- 
tempted to establish a tribunal with jurisdiction and with 
capacity to determine all the disputes which ever gave rise 
to a strike. In the second place, I hope you will bear in 
mind the character of the penal provision, which is that — 

It shall be unlawful for two or more persons, being officers, directors, 
managers, agents, attorneys, or employees of any carrier or carriers 
subject to the act^to regulate commerce, as amended for the purpose of 
maintaining, adjusting or settling any dispute, demand, or controversy 
which, under the provisions of this act, can be submitted for decision 
to the committee of wages and working conditions or to a regional board 
of adjustment, to enter into any combination or agreement with the 
intent substantially to hinder, restrain, or prevent the operation of 
trains or other facilities of transportation for the movement of com- 
modities or persons in interstate commerce, or in pursuance of any such 
combination or agreement and with like purpose substantially to hinder, 
restrain, or prevent the operation of trains or other facilities of trans- 
portation for the movement of commodities or persons in interstate 
commerce. 

This is the description of the offense; and remember that 
the oflFense can only be committed when the dispute is one 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 113 

of which the government has taken jurisdiction, and which 
it has assumed the duty of adjudicating according to its very 
merits. 

There is another provision which is necessary as a sup- 
plement to the one I have just read, as follows: 

Whoever knowingly and with like intent shall aid, abet, counsel, 
command, induce, or procure the commission or performance of any act 
made unlawful in the last preceding section hereof shall be held guilty 
of a misdemeanor — 

And so forth. 

You will all recognize that this is simply a reproduction 
of our present statute with regard to accessories and those 
who aid and abet in the commission of a crime. 

Mr. President, remembering that we have provided a 
tribunal which we believe to be a just, fair, and impartial tri- 
bunal for the adjudication of all controversies of the char- 
acter I have described, I hope that this thought will be in 
every mind, that we are substituting the justice of the gov- 
ernment of the United States for the justice which wage 
workers have hoped to secure through the strike. We are 
simply exchanging one instrumentality for another. We are 
offering an opportunity to secure justice which does not in- 
volve this awful sacrifice, which does not involve the wreck 
and ruin of industry, of homes, and of character. We are 
offering to do in controversies out of which railway strikes 
may arise just what our courts of justice have done for cen- 
turies with respect to controversies between man and man. 
Hitherto we have not regarded it as necessary that our gov- 
ernment should undertake the adjudication which is here 
provided for, and I, Mr. President, have been very slow and 
very reluctant to go forv/ard to that duty. But I perceive, 
and I have long perceived, that it is necessary, if we are to 
have regularity and continuity of employment. Therefore 
I am willing, on the part of my government, to undertake 
to do full and complete justice, so far as wages and working 
conditions are concerned, to those who enter into employ- 
ment of this character. I believe, and believe from the bot- 
tom of my heart, that the laboring men of America will be 
more apt to secure justice or approach perfect justice through 
the intervention of these tribunals for the settlement of 
their disputes than they have ever been able to secure 



114 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

through the medium of the strike, when you remember the 
losses that are entailed not only upon the general public, 
not only upon their immediate employer, but upon them- 
selves. When will the striking miners be able to recoup the 
enormous losses which they have suffered during the last 
month? 

It is said they would, if necessary, imperil lives of their 
fellow men in order to accomplish their purposes; but if we 
provide for them a tribunal in which they have confidence 
and for which they have respect and to which they can ap- 
peal, there could be no justification, no defense whatever, for 
the danger through which they are now leading the people 
of the United States. Think of this provision merely as a 
substitution of justice, so far as human government can ad- 
minister justice, for the ends sought to be obtained by the 
strike. 

I am not conscious of any change in my heart toward 
those who labor with their hands. I know through the ex- 
perience of earlier years some of the hardships, some of the 
privations, some of the sufferings which attend the lives of 
men of meager compensation, but I can have no sympathy 
whatever with an effort to overturn the institutions of Amer- 
ica through the disorders which niust inevitably accompany 
these constantly repeated efforts to determine what is right 
and what is just bv mere conflict and through the powers 
of endurance. 

Possibly some Senator can suggest a better plan through 
which we may rise to a higher ground for the adjustment 
of these great disputes and for the calming of these intense 
passions. If any Senator can do so, I am sure the com- 
mittee will be glad to accept any suggestion which may be 
made. We only know — and upon this I speak, I am sure, 
with absolute certainty — that in some way there must be 
found, in some way we must discover, the path from the 
tangle of conflict and of passion into which we are constant- 
ly led. I would have no faith in the intelligence of my fel- 
low men, I would have no confidence in the patriotism of 
the people, if I did not believe that there is a solution for 
this mighty problem that will bring peace, order, prosperity, 
happiness, and content to all the people of the country. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES iiS 

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION IN RAILROAD 
LABOR DISPUTES ' 

Since the dawn of civilization, no more difficult problem 
has faced humanitj*^ than the problems involved in labor and 
its employers. Naturally, there always has been a conten- 
tion between the employer of labor and the employee. Up 
to the present time, at least in modern times, the contest 
between labor and capital, so called, has been settled by 
force. For many years, in the ages that have passed, labor 
was not strong enough to exercise its power effectively, and 
the force of capital dominated it, forced unreasonable and 
unjust terms on it, and it has only been through the gradual 
evolution of the rights of labor that it has come to a point 
where it can fight for itself. 

Through the last half century labor has been fighting for 
itself, until to-day organized labor constitutes the effective 
force in human endeavor, the dominant force between labor 
and capital. It may be said that that is not an unjust posi- 
tion for it to occupy, because it has fought its way to that 
position. It would not be if the only matter in dispute were 
a fight between labor and capital. If that were all that 
were involved in the issue, I would not be in favor of the 
provisions of this part of the bill. 

But the issue here goes far beyond the question of labor 
and capital. As a matter of fact, so far as railroad labor is 
concerned, it has no issue with invested capital. Theoret- 
ically it may have, but as a practical proposition the wages 
of labor engaged in railroad industry have long ceased to 
come out of invested capital. They come out of freight 
rates and passenger rates as prescribed by the government, 
either through a director general or through the supervision 
of an Interstate Commerce Commission. The amount of la- 
bor involved and the value of labor's wage in this industry 
is so great that if it rested for one year upon invested capital 
it would destroy invested capital. Of necessity it must come 
out of the earnings of these roads, and the earnings of the 
roads must come out of the public. 

* Speech of Hon. Oscar W. Underwood in the United States Senate, 
December i8, 1919. 



ii6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

If that is the case, is it fairly stating the proposition to 
say that labor must still carry its weapon of offense against 
capital, that the value of its wage must be determined on the 
battle ground between labor and capital, and then, after the 
battle is fought and won, the result of the victory must be 
assessed against the public, which has had no interest or no 
hand in the dispute? 

But it does not even stop there. The public are not only 
required to pay the bill, but they must bear the burden of 
the fight. The reservation to labor of the right to strike 
is either an actual fact, a weapon that is poised on its way 
to the blow, or it is a mere theory and is of no value. If 
it is of no value, if it is not going to be used, if there is no 
danger of a strike, if it is not an effective weapon for labor, 
why should we hesitate to adopt clauses in this bill that pro- 
vide that two or more men shall not conspire to interfere 
with interstate commerce? There is nothing to be obtained 
for labor, if this is a mere theory, a weapon that will never 
be put into force. 

On the other hand, if it is an actual weapon that some 
dav may be used, who will pay the penalty? Of course 
there can be nothing else now but a universal railroad strike 
in this country. The day of a local strike is past. There 
may be a bubbling over here or there on the map. Labor 
leaders do not want local strikes. Railroad companies do 
not want them. It is only when the organization loses its 
control that a local strike takes place. The real effort is 
the effort to bring about a universal railroad strike in Amer- 
ica. 

That was threatened in 1916. We were told that it was 
imminent at that time unless remedial legislation was passed 
to avert it. Legislation was passed, and the strike was avert- 
ed; and now we are told by some that there was no danger 
of that strike, that the men did not intend to strike, or that 
the representatives of the railroad companies would have 
surrendered. We are told by some that when labor came 
to Congress and asked that the Adamson bill be passed in 
order to avoid strike conditions the men who came here did 
not represent their organizations, and that they are in no 
way committed to the precedent set in that case. Neverthe- 
less, a great strike was imminent, it was threatening the com- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES II7 

mercial life of the nation, and was only avoided by legis- 
lative enactment. 

Who would have paid the price if the railroads had 
stopped operating for 30 days by reason of a great strike? 
Capital would have been affected to some extent, because 
the earnings on capital might have been affected. 

Labor would have suffered to a great extent, because 
labor's wages would have been wiped out for the period of 
the strike. But the sufferings neither of vested capital nor 
of labor would have been commensurate with the distress 
that would have come to every home of this land. 

Stop the railroads from operating into the great cities for 
30 days, and the population is starving. Stop the railroads 
from operating into an industrial center for 30 days, and 
commerce has ceased, and labor involved in commerce is 
out of employment. Stop the railroads from operating for 
30 days, and the whole business life of the nation has ceased 
to function. That is the price that the people of the United 
States must pay for the privilege given to organized labor 
to declare a universal strike for any cause and to make it 
effective. 

I am not going to contend as to whether the cause of 
labor is just or not. Men are human, whether we class them 
in the aggregate or as individuals, and human nature is prone 
to err on either side of the equation. I think it is safe to 
say that sometimes a strike is most just, for a most just 
cause, and at other times a strike is without reason or jus- 
tice behind it. 

But that is not the question involved here. The public, 
the hundred millions of people in the United States, are not 
those who determine whether the strike is just or unjust. 
They merely stand by to pay the penalty, and they will have 
to pay it some day, beyond peradventure of a doubt, if the 
Congress of the United States is unwilling to meet the sit- 
uation and put remedial legislation on the statute books 
that will work justly to all men and avoid the dangers to 
the American public. 

Some men speak of the so-called right to strike as if it 
were a human right, a right that belonged to men, like the 
right to live, the right to breathe, the right to work in an 
individual capacity. Organized labor itself repudiates the 



ii8 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

foremost right of man, the right to work, when it stands for 
a closed shop. 

The by-laws of many of these organizations proclaim 
that no man can work in certain shops or at certain em- 
ployment unless he belongs to a particular organization, and 
works within the rules and according to the dictates of that 
organization. 

If labor has the privilege and the right to deny to other 
labor the unrestricted right to toil and earn its daily wage, 
does it lie in their mouths to say that the Congress of the 
United States is taking away from them an inherent right 
that belongs to them when the Congress says, "You can 
work only under certain limitations," the Congress speaking 
for the whole people of the United States? 

To strike! What does it mean? Men now talk of the 
right to strike as if it were the right to quit work. The 
right to strike and the right of the individual to quit his em- 
ployment are two very different things. 

One is the exercise of individual liberty, the other is the 
exercise of aggregate force to accomplish a purpose, to carry 
out the desire of the men engaged in the strike, or of the 
organization that has ordered the strike. One is a negative 
force, that hurts no man; the other is an active force, that 
injures many. This bill in its terms provides that nothing 
written in these pages shall be construed as preventing any 
man engaged in the railroad business from quitting his em- 
ployment, and yet they speak of it as if this bill intended to 
coerce men to work when they did not desire to do so. 

A strike is what it implies in its own terms. It is a blow, 
a blow directed with an object behind it, and it is the only 
way that it makes it effective. Is the Congress to stand 
here and allow any organization whatever to deliver a blow 
against the American public that may endanger the very life 
of the nation, or is it our duty to see that substantial justice 
is done to all concerned without the delivery of the destruc- 
tive blow? 

When the bill and these provisions were before the Com- 
mittee on Interstate Commerce, Mr. Gompers appeared as 
a witness in opposition to the bill. I asked him some ques- 
tions regarding the matter. I think his answers to the ques- 
tions I asked thoroughly defined the position of labor in 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 119 

regard to the bill and where their position leads to. I am 
therefore going to take the time of the Senate to read three 
or four pages from the hearings, so that that position may 
be made clear in the record. 

I said this to Mr. Gompers: 

I think some of the gentlemen who have come before us have mis- 
understood the purpose or the reason for the initiation of this legisla- 
tion; but I am sure you have not because I think you recognize the fact 
that in recent years you and those you represent have been reasonably 
and fairly treated by Congress. Of course, this legislation comes with 
a sentiment behind it or it would not be here; but there is a sentiment 
among the people that is responsive to it, because Congress seldom acts 
without the sentiment of the people in framing legislation. Of course, 
you recognize that that sentiment comes from a fear that a general 
universal strike throughout this country would bring a. debacle that would 
make the mass of the people who are not engaged in the strike suffer 
more than even the horrors of war. Now, that is the real thing thjt 
brings this legislation to the table. Now, I want to ask you if you op- 
pose it or if you think it is ill advised to meet this situation by profit 
sharing or any other reward to labor except the just wage that is due 
it; how are we to avoid the danger to the public of an issue that comes, 
that may come at some time? Fortunately it has never come yet in that 
stressed form, the danger that may come to the public of a universal 
strike in this country that might last for months. Is there any other way 
to avoid it except by law? 

Air. Gompers answered the question as follows: 

You can not avoid it by law. That is not the way to avoid it. 

Then I asked: 

^Vhat other way is there to avoid it? Of course, I do not so agree 
that it can not be avoided by law. You may be right; I may be wrong. 
I think th law goes a long ways sometimes 

Mr. Gompers. Sometimes. 

Then I asked the question. 

But I would like to have your view. I think it as a serious problem 
that confronts the country. I am sure that you realize the seriousness 
of the problem, and I would like to have your view on that subject. 

Mr. Gompers. No one views that thought, much less than act, more 
seriously than I do; but I do know this: There has been no general 
strike of railroad men in the United States, and the attempt that was 
made in 1894 with the A. R. U. strike was, after a few days, practically 
abortive. The railroad brotherhoods stood as strongly against that gen- 
eral strike as any body of men cooild. They had more influence in de- 
termining that it should not pass those limits or reach those limits than 
anybody could have, the Congress included. The American Federation 
of Labor was a party to a conference in 1894 at Chicago where an urgent 
appeal was made to us to order or to declare for a general strike of all 
the workers of the country. The men of the American Federation of 
Labor were in conference with the chiefs of the railroad brotherhoods, 
and that was negatived. We were willing to do anything we could to 
bring about better conditions for the workers at Pullman, 111., but we 
would not sanction, but gave our disapproval of, anything like a general 
railroad strike or a general strike among the workers. 

Then I said: 

Well, I am not talking about the past. I iuppose the nearest we 
came to it was in 1916. But it does mean that that is what the public 
visualizes, and that is the sentiment that stands behind this bill. 



120 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Mb. Gompers. The question is whether such a strike could be pre- 
vented if this measure were enacted into the law. That is the question. 

Then I asked the question: 

Well, that question, of course, I recognize. I recognize, as a rule, if 
this became a law that it would prevent a universal strike; but I may 
be in error. You may be right; but the question I would be glad to 
have you answer to go into the record, not only for you and me but 
for the country to understand is: Is there any other way that a uni- 
versal railroad strike or the danger of it can be avoided if the Govern- 
ment itself does not act? 

May I read that question again, because I want to im- 
press it upon the record? 

Is there any other way that a universal railroad strike or the danger 
of it can be avoided if the Government itself does not act? 

Mr. Gompers answered: 

I can not underwrite any measure or proposition that will absolutely 
prevent a general railroad strike. No one can. But this I do know: 
That fair treatment of the workers and with the workers' organizations 
is the best insurance against such a movement, such a strike. You will 
find the four railroad brotherhoods, with their executive officers, are men 
of experience, men of intelligence, and men with a fair sense of the 
responsibility that rests upon them. I do not mean only the chiefs of 
these brotherhoods; I have also in mind their associates on the executive 
boards and in the various divisions throughout the country. 

There is no greater safeguard against such strikes than a reasonable 
course pursued by the companies and by the employers to treat with the 
workers and give these men a fair chance that they may have the op 
portunity of educating their fellows. If that chance is denied them, it 
every move they make is antagonized, their influence will be destroyed 
and the element that now would turn this country topsy-turvy would 
have the ear and the attention of the discontented in the organizations 
and the unorganized. 

Then I said: 

Well, I am interested in what you say, but that does not answer 
the question. I assume that you mean by your answer to the question 
that you do not think it is possible in any other way except by law, by 
this law, to eliminate the possibility, the future possibility, of a universal 
railroad strike. 

Mr. Gompers. I say with the full understanding of the words 1 
employ, that the surest way of creating dissension, greater unrest, pos- 
sibly leading to such a strike, is the provision in that bill. No other 
agency could provoke it more than that bill. 

Yesterday I took occasion in some little detail to discuss the ex- 
perience of the countries in which compulsory arbitration has been tried. 
Although it is not called a compulsory arbitration law, it still is, in 
other words, a law to determine wages, hours, conditions of employ- 
ment; and if there be no majoritv of the two parties or four, then 
there is an appeal to another board whose findings and award are final 
in matters on wages, hours, and conditions of employment. It is final. 
There is no appeal anywhere. The men must obey. They must work, 
whether they will it or not. They can not quit work, they can not 
strike, if you please. You will never take away from the working 
people by law or by any other process the right of the workers to quit 
their employment. 

Then I said: 

Well, I would not do that if I had the power. 
Mh. Gompers. That is done in that bill. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



I said: 

I do not think it is in that bill. 

Mr. Gompers said: 

It is in the bill, section 29. 

I then said: 

But the difference is, or I think it is, under the bill, that there is 
no limitation on the power of the workers, in singles or in pairs, to 
quit the railroad employment unless they do it for the purpose of inter- 
fering with commerce, the movement of commerce. Of course that is a 
different question from the mere question of their right to work. In 
the interest of the public we pass many laws restricting the rights of the 
individual. Of course, to keep the flow of commerce that keeps the people 
of America going, I have no doubt, and I do not think you would 
disagree with me, that we have a right to pass reasonable laws and 
regulations in the protection of the public. That is the way I view 
this part of the section. The real question involved in this bill is the 
question of the Government fixing the wage instead of the corporation 
fixing the wage. Although this is called arbitration, I think you will 
agree with me that this is not compulsory arbitration, but, in the last 
analysis, it is the fixing of the wage by the Government. The Govern- 
ment board has the last say and it fixes the wage. 

Mr. Gompers. Yes; and the men are compelled to work under that 
governmental award. 

Then I said: 

Well, just as the clerks in a department in Washington, with their 
fixed wages, are obliged if they want to work at all. 

Mr. Gompers. But they can not quit. They must work. 

I said: 

I do not understand it that way. I think you are wrong. 

Omitting a few sentences there that are not pertinent to 
the issue, I said: 

If it was intended to stop the movement of trains, yes; but not be- 
cause a man was not satisfied with his job and wanted higher wages. 

Mr. Gompers. The man who wants to quit his job can quit. It is not 
a question _ of a man quitting his job, but two men in concert quitting 
their jobs in order to persaude or influence the employer to grant better 
conditions; and the idea of simply quitting is not the only thing. No 
man can quit his job without inconveniencing the employer or others. 
The stenographers in the Senate, if they informed the clerk, or the man 
who has them in charge, who gives them employment, that they are no 
longer willing to work for the rate of compensation, and they quit 
work, it would inconvenience the Senate very materially; and that is 
the purpose, to inconvenience the Senate sufficiently that the Senate 
will yield a fair consideration to these men. 

I will not take up the time of the Senate in reading fur- 
ther from this statement, but I have read from it for the 
purpose of bringing out two facts: one is that Mr. Gom- 
pers, the supreme head of organized labor in the United 
States, declares that there is no other way to avoid a uni- 
versal strike except by this bill; and he denies that this bill 
will do it, but he says there is no other way. Then he says 



122 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

that a strike is an offensive weapon. In the last sentence 
that I read to you he admits the bill does not prevent the 
individual from exercising his personal liberty and quitting 
work when he desires to do so, but that it does prevent two 
or more from exercising the right to quit collectively so as 
to inconvenience their employer and by that course compel 
- employer to agree to their terms of employment. 

That is the issue presented to the country. It is not dis- 
])uted by the supreme head of organized labor. The ques- 
tion that confronts this body is whether or not, under those 
circumstances, the Senate of the United States intends to sur- 
render the initiative — to recognize that there is no way to 
avoid the calamity of a universal strike, except by law, and 
then refuse to pass the law. 

About the terms of the law I am not so much con- 
cerned. Write in this bill a provision that the mass of the 
American people shall no longer be in danger of a universal 
strike and I am willing for you to write the terms under 
which labor shall surrender that so-called right. 

I fully recognize the fact that the force of the blow un- 
der the right to strike is the weapon by which labor must 
battle upward, and under ordinary circumstances and con- 
ditions it is entitled to use that force in its own behalf, if 
it does not endanger the public. I also recognize the fact 
that if that right is taken away from organized labor or 
unorganized labor, in justice and right they must be given 
some remedy in its place. Labor should not be disarmed 
and capital left armed cap-a-pie to ride them down; there 
would be no justice in that, but in every other walk of life 
we have established the courts of the land to avoid the blow. 

Back in the generations that have passed man held his 
property by force of arms; to-day he holds his property by 
force of law. So long as the strike did not threaten the 
body politic, the government ignored the power of the strike, 
but now that the people, as a whole, are endanprered, only 
the government can protect them. 

Is it injustice to any man to prepare a fair and just tribu- 
nal in which the great issue of wages and working condi- 
tions may be worked out and solved, first, in the interest 
of labor, and, second, in the interest of the American public? 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i«3 

Mr. Gompers, in his testimony — and I take his testimony 
because he is the leader; the testimony of the chiefs of the 
brotherhoods who appeared before the committee was along 
similar lines — Mr. Gompers, in his testimony, says that the 
way to avoid strikes is through the moderation and concilia- 
tion of the railroad chiefs and their subordinates; the reach- 
ing of a common understanding on controverted matters; 
working out abstract justice through mediation. Have they 
any less opportunity to work out abstract justice through the 
inediation of a government board such as is proposed by the 
bill than they have in a board of directors of a railroad com- 
pany? I think not. I think the position of labor, if it is 
only battling for what is justlj^ its rights, is vastly more im- 
proved under the terms and conditions of this bill than if 
it were relegated back to the present warring conditions pre- 
vailing between labor and invested capital. 

I think that the fundamental provision in this bill which 
is going to work out a result is the one that if arbitration 
fails, if conciliation fails, a board of men appointed by the 
President of the United States, representing the American 
people, assumed to be free from bias and prejudice on either 
side, shall sit in final judgment and determine what is a fair 
wage, not between labor and capital but a fair wage between 
labor and the public that pays the bill. I do not know of 
anything that would be a greater backward step for the 
Congress of the United States to take to-day than to aban- 
don the efforts made during the Great War by the govern- 
ment and its government boards to see that labor was justly 
and fairly compensated and avoid the debacle of strike con- 
ditions and strike out the labor provisions of this bill. That 
[^- what it means. 

How many strikes were adjusted during the Great War 
because there were in existence boards similar to those set 
up in this bill? Can anyone say that labor was unjustly 
treated, that the government wronged the labor of the United 
States in the trial of these matters? I think not. I say the 
man who predicts that a board representing the government 
of the United States can not do justice to labor doubts the 
very fundamental principle on which our government is es- 
tablished, doubts the ability of our government to do justice 



124 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

between man and man, and preserve the liberties of the 
American people. 

******* 

I £ it is a good thing to prevent a strike temporarily — and it 
is — ^why is it not a good thing to prevent it entirely? If this can 
be worked out justly as a temporary matter by a government 
board and boards of arbitration, why can it not be worked out 
as the final conclusion? That is the question. If it can, why 
should we limit the process? It is either right or it is wrong 
in principle. It is either right or it is wrong in justice to 
the men who are earning their daily wage on these railroads. 
It is either right or it is wrong so far as the American public 
is concerned; and if it is right in part for temporary pur- 
poses, then it seems to me that the conclusion is irresistible 
that it is right in whole and should be adopted for the final 
conclusion. 

There is nothing in this bill that prevents any man from 
quitting work if he does not enjoy it. If he thinks he 
can get a better wage or more satisfactory employment some- 
where else, there is nothing in the folds of this bill that 
stands in his way. The only thing in this bill, if you bring 
it down to its last analysis, and eliminate all the preliminary 
procedure of arbitration and leading up to the question of 
final conclusion, is that a government board, appointed by 
the President of the United States and confirmed by the 
Senate of the United States, representing the hundred mil- 
lion people of this country, entirely free from bias on the 
side either of capital or labor, shall determine what is a fair 
and just wage to the men who carry the commerce of this 
country, and then reflect that determination back into the 
freight and passenger rates, and make it a charge against 
the shipping public of America, and I might say the con- 
suming public of America. That is all there is in this bill. 

But, like any other law that is in the interest of the peo- 
ple, the bill says that if you do not comply with the law, 
the government makes you comply with the law. What 
does that mean? That means that any man in railroad em- 
ploy in the future, if the terms of this bill are adopted, who 
is not satisfied with his wage or his working conditions, can 
carry his complaint to the government tribunal without let 
or hindrance from anybody. He does not have to be the 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 125 

tool of a labor organization or of a railroad company. He 
can exercise his own individual rights, and have the govern- 
ment determine what is a fair and just wage. I say that 
there is no danger of the government doing injustice to this 
great body of citizens of America. This is a republican gov- 
ernment, a free government. The men whose wage scale 
will be tried in this government court cast 2,000,000 votes in 
the American Republic. Is it at all probable, under those 
conditions, that the finding of that board is going to be un- 
just and inequitable in their behalf? 

I think not. If there is any bias to be expected on either 
side, it will fall on the side of the employee, naturally, but 
in the end it will be a check against any inordinate increase 
of wages that must be reflected into the freight rates that 
must be paid by the American people. 

My friend the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Stanley] was 
contending with me on the floor a day or two ago that pos- 
sibly an increase in the freight rates of America might mean 
an increased charge to the American public of five times the 
amoitnt of that increased rate. I am going to apply his own 
argument to himself, that where we charge $1 more for 
freight the consuming American public must pay $5 before 
its food and its clothes come to its homes. 

There is no theory about the proposition which I am now 
going to state. Since 1916 and largely during the period of 
the Great War the wage of the railroad workers of America 
has increased a billion dollars. That is no theory; that is 
a fact. A billion dollars! If those who contend that in- 
creasing freight rates $1 reflects $5 into the cost of the prod- 
uct when it reaches the ultimate consumer are correct, then 
we are to believe that the increase of $1,000,000,000 in the 
labor wage of the American railroad employees was instantly 
reflected into the freight rates because it could not be paid 
anywhere else. 

The Director General of Railroads increased the freight 
rates 25 per cent and the passenger rates 50 per cent through- 
out America. He made a greater increase than that, because 
he changed classifications in many particulars that amounted 
to an increase in freight rates. So' that the extent that the 
wage scale went up was reflected into the pockets of the 
men who ship the freight. 



126 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

That being the case, is it contended that that billion dol- 
lars increase in wages reflects $5,000,000,000 in the pockets 
of the American people? If it does, we have some idea of 
where, at least in part, the increased cost to the American 
people comes from. 

The question of wage scale is not settled. I am not going 
to pass on the contention as to whether it is right or wrong. 
I am not informed. It is not my place to pass on it. But 
we know that the men engaged in the railroad world to-day 
are insisting now that there shall be a further increase in 
wages. They may be right or they may be wrong. If that 
wage increase is anything in proportion to the last one, 
then it would mean another billion dollars, and if the argu- 
ment about freight rates as made by some here is correct, 
it would mean reflecting into the pockets of the consuming 
masses of American people another $5,000,000,000. 

Now, can the Congress of the United States, because it 
wants to be just to labor, because it wants to be fair to la- 
bor, ignore labor itself, ignore the clerk in the counting- 
house, the ditch digger in the street, the man on the scaf- 
fold building the great buildings of America, the laborer on 
the farm, and say that an organization in the United States 
composed of not over 2,000,000 men can reflect their will 
and through the power of the threatened strike force billions 
of dollars into the cost of living of the American people? 

That is the issue at which I am looking. I do not stand 
here holding a brief against labor. I know that when labor 
ceases to battle upward the nation is dead; but when one 
class of labor, one clan in the great body politic of labor, 
desires to reserve to itself the right to stand independent of 
the government, to exercise its right or the so-called privi- 
lege to strike in order that it may enforce additional bur- 
dens on the masses of the American people, then, I say, the 
time and place have come when it is the duty of the gov- 
ernment of the United States to function in the matter. 

Do not tear down class or clan. I am not in favor of de- 
stroying union labor. I think union organization has done 
great things for labor, and sometimes it has done great in- 
jury to labor. I am not with union labor when it seeks to 
make the closed shop and deny to other men the right to 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 127 

work. I am not with union labor when it says by force of 
arms, the force of the power to strike, that "we can invade 
the party politic and make the American public pay the price, 
right or wrong." I am not with union labor then, but I am 
with union labor when it says, "We are entitled to social 
justice." 

That is the high ideal of all labor, the uplifting of the 
home, the education of children, the upbuilding of society — 
all that is theirs, justly theirs; but it is not in keening with 
the exercise of the brutal power of the savage to strike down 
other men with a blow in order that they may take home 
what they have regardless of the right or the justice in the 
case. When you say that labor has the right to exercise or 
bring about a universal railroad strike in the country, to 
starve the American people into submission in order that it 
may dictate to them its will and put its penalties on the 
backs of the American people, then I draw the line and I 
will not go with you. 

If that is the case, if that is the justice of the cause, I 
say, give them a government board to decide what is a just 
wage, and I will go with you as far as you can go to see that 
that board is just and fair and equitable. Then I say that 
the decision of that board is written into the law of the land, 
and I am prepared to send to jail the man who defies its con- 
clusions, like I am prepared to send to jail the man who de- 
ties the law of the land. 

The great sustaining policy of the American Republic is 
its just laws, and they can only be just to all by all uphold- 
ing them. How are we to uphold them? We can not up- 
hold the law by appealing merely to the conscience of men 
to obey the law. IVEc-^t men obey tiie law because they re- 
spect it, but some men are highwaymen and obey no law 
except by the force of the strong arm of the government. 

If you have worked out abstract justice through courts 
of arbitration and the final court of the government to 
solve the question in the interest of labor and have pro- 
tected the American public against unjust demands, and at 
the same time have left labor free to exercise its individual 
liberty and quit employment when it elects, so long as it 
does not defy the law, then I say that you have, as this bill 



128 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

does, responded to all the demands of abstract justice, and 
the man who defies it stands in defiance of the law and, like 
other lawbreakers, should be punished. 



LIBERTY AND LAW IN KANSAS^ 

Mow the Industrial Court Protects the Public, Insures Justice 
to Labor, and Increases Production 

The Kansas law creating a Court of Industrial Relations 
followed the coal strike of last winter. It is not the result 
of an effort to legislate against either employing capital or 
labor. It came out of the public realization of the suffering 
which was brought by industrial warfare upon an unpro- 
tected people who had no part in bringing on the general 
coal strike but who were the defenseless victims of it. 

When the coal strike occurred, this section of the country- 
was almost entirely without fuel. Within two weeks there 
was suffering. The state took over the mines under an or- 
der of the Supreme Court appointing a receivership. Vol- 
unteers were called to operate the mines for the purpose of 
saving the public from the disaster of the coal famine. More 
than 11,000 Kansans volunteered their services within twenty- 
four hours after the first call. 

From this magnificent offering we selected a sufficient 
number of men to man the strip mines, taking the personnel 
very largely from those who had been in the army service. 
In ten days these splendid young men, who volunteered un- 
der a sense of patriotic duty, produced enough coal to re- 
lieve the emergencies in two hundred Kansas communities. 
The thermometer was below zero much of the time, and the 
obstacles were almost insuperable, but the men worked from 
daylight to dark and very few of them ever inquired as to 
what the salary for their labor would be. They were paid 
$570 per day, which was the average wage of the miners, 
but they worked without relation to hours. 

Purposes of the Kansas Latv 

While the state operation was still in progress, a special 
session of the legislature was called to enact a law creating 

1 By Henry J. Allen, Governor of Kansas, in Review of Reviews. 
June, 1920. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 129 

an industrial court for the purpose of placing upon the state 
the responsibility of regulating industrial strife. The law — 
which creates a strong, dignified tribunal vested with power, 
authority, and jurisdiction to hear and determine all contro- 
versies which may arise and which threaten to hinder, de- 
lay, or suspend the operation of essential industries — was 
passed with only seven votes against it in the lower house 
and two votes against it in the Senate. The new tribunal 
is known as the Court of Industrial Relations, composed of 
three judges appointed by the governor with the advice and 
consent of the Senate. The terms are for three years each 
and are arranged so that they overlap. This would safe- 
guard the court against an entire change of personnel under 
any one governor. It is not a court of arbitration, but a 
court of justice. 

The purpose of the court is — 

(a) To make strikes, lockouts, boycotts, and blacklists un- 
necessary and impossible, by giving labor as well as capital 
an able and just tribunal in which to litigate all controver- 
sies. 

(b) To insure to the people of this state, at all times, an 
adequate supply of those products which are absolutely nec- 
essary to sustain the life of civilized peoples. 

(c) To stabilize production of these necessaries, so that 
we will also, to a great extent, stabilize the price to the pro- 
ducer as well as the consumer. 

(d) To insure to labor steadier employment, at a fairer 
wage, under better working conditions. 

(c) To prevent the colossal economic waste which always 
attends industrial disturbances. 

The basis of the law is in the inherent right of the state 
to protect itself and its members against anything that is 
prejudicial to the common welfare. This principle has been 
recognized for more than twenty centuries. It was inscribed 
upon one of the Twelve Tables of the Roman Law: Salus 
populi suprema lex. 

Ejfect of the Law Upon Production 

Last year, for the first three months of the period, there 
were something over forty strikes in the various mines of 
the Kansas district. This year there have been no strikes. 
During a few days while the court was dealing with the 



130 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

refusal of Alexander Howat and some members of his staflF 
to testify in a case which was brought by some of his own 
union miners, there was a temporary shut-down of the mines; 
but the actual eflFect of the law upon production shows that 
in slightly less than three months more coal has been pro- 
duced in the Kansas district than during any other five and 
a half months in the history of that district, with practically 
the same number of miners. 

One of the strong effects of the law is in the power of 
the court to require the continuous operation of industries, 
which are forbidden to shut down for any purpose to effect 
wage controversies or the price of the commodity to the 
public. In the past years, particularly in the coal-mining dis- 
trict, the mines have produced very indifferent results dur- 
ing the summer. It is stated that an average of one day per 
week would cover the operation of the mines. Under the 
new law, the operators will be obliged to operate with rea- 
sonable continuit3s v^'ith the result that we will begin next 
winter with a coal reserve instead of a coal famine. This 
principle, applied to all of the essential industries under the 
supervision of the Kansas court, will have a very splendid 
result in stabilizing the market as well as providing the pub- 
lic with the normal output of production under favorable 
conditions. 

Adjusting Miners' Grievances 

Soon after the court was created four hundred miners 
quit work as a protest against the law. The Attorney-Gen- 
eral brought before him the officers of this group, who, when 
they understood all the provisions of the law, ordered their 
miners back to work. The suspension lasted only one day. 

On that occasion, a group of miners having some general 
grievances brought these grievances voluntarily into the 
court. This was significant by reason of the fact that the 
method prescribed by the bj'^-laws of the miners' union ob- 
ligated these miners to bring their grievances through their 
local and district officers. But instead of going through pre- 
scribed channels, these miners came voluntarily into the 
court, asking for the adjudication of their grievances. 

Alexander Howat, president of the district, called a, meet- 
ing of his war council and passed a resolution declaring that 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 131 

any miner thereafter who should bring his grievance before 
the industrial court would be fined $50. If any local union 
or officer of any union appealed to the court for an adjudi- 
cation of a grievance, that officer or union should be fined 
$5000. In spite of this a number of unions — including the 
shot-firers, who affect every mine in the district — brought 
their grievances into the cou:t. 

During the hearings of the court, which were held at Pitts- 
burgh in the center of the mining district, the most sympa- 
thetic and cooperative testimony was given by the miners. 
A number of very revealing conditions were brought out, 
which formed the basis for several decisions and orders. 

For example, it was discovered that it had been the cus- 
tom in the district for a good m^any years for the operators 
to charge the miners a heavy discount if their wages were 
paid in advance of the regular pay day, which was once every 
two weeks. Miners v/ho needed the wages they had earned 
in the interim would collect the wages already earned, but 
in advance of pay day, and the operators would charge them 
10 per cent, for the prepayment. No effort had ever been 
made to correct the abuse. The court corrected it at once, 
establishing the order that a miner might collect wages due 
him, paying only a minimum fee for the bookkeeping charge 
made necessary in the advance payment. The operators did 
not contest the order of the industrial court, and the new 
system is now working. 

Another abuse corrected as the result of the miners' tes- 
timony was in relation to the charge for explosives. Ever 
since the decision of the National Commission, the opera- 
tors, who were commanded to sell explosives at cost, did not 
state the price; and the miners were obliged to do their 
work under uncertainty as to what would be charged for 
powder and dynamite. Several efforts had been made by 
miners and operators to secure a conference on this subject 
with the miners' officials, but these efforts had failed. The 
court established a fixed price for explosives, conditioned up- 
on the cost. This decision is of great importance, since it 
involves directly the wages of miners who mine their coal 
at a stated price per ton and pay out of this the cost of the 
explosives which they require for their work. 

The testimony of the shot-firers, who brought their case 



[32 



COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 



to the court in defiance of Alexander Howat's threat to fine 
them $5000, exhibited the fact that for three years they had 
sought in vain for proper consideration of their grievances. 

Another fact produced by the testimony of several min- 
ers, who had been upon a strike called by the president of 
the district in the mines of the Central Coal and Coke Com- 
pany, was that while they had asked repeatedly for a state- 
ment of the grievance upon which the strike was called, 
they had never been told by their union president why they 
were striking. They had been idle for more than three 
months, living upon meager strike benefits without any intel- 
ligent appreciation as to why they were idle. They had lost in 
wages over $800,000. The real issue upon which the strike 
was called involved less than $2000, and its essence was a 
personal grievance on the part of the president of the dis- 
trict against the operators of the mine. 

Settling a Railroad Strike 

Another important decision of the court related to the 
employees of the Joplin and Pittsburgh Interurban Railway 
Company. In 1914, there was a strike of eighty days' dura- 
tion, costing the men who were out of employment several 
hundred thousand dollars. The road connects two of the 
most important mining districts in the Middle West in the 
zinc and coal fields. The strike deprived the residents of this 
district of their most important mode of transportation, af- 
fecting not only the mining and commercial interests, but 
the agricultural interests. In 1918, while the country was in 
the throes of war, there was a strike of thirty-six days, caus- 
ing not only great loss to both the wage-earners and the 
company, but shortage of production and general disaster. 
In March of the present year another strike was threatened, 
but the employees of the road brought their grievance into 
the Court of Industrial Relations. The case was brought on 
February 24, and in less than three weeks a hearing was had 
and an order made which was satisfactory to both the em- 
ployees and the company. 

In this case a singular evidence was given of the confi- 
dence of both sides in the justice of the court. Only a 
few of the complainants appeared in the court, although 
several hundred employees were involved. The order was 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I33 

made effective, and the adjudication occurred without the 
loss of a moment of time. Even the v^^itnesses who appeared 
in court lost less than a day, and there was continuous ser- 
vice on the line during the proceedings. 

Our Typical Cases 

There are in the court to-day three cases in which strikes 
were threatened and would doubtless have occurred had it 
not been for the law. One of these is in the shop and 
roundhouse laborers of the railroad craft. A general strike 
had been called, but the national executive committee of the 
craft, by an almost unanimous vote, decided that in Kansas 
the action should be determined in the Court of Industrial 
Relations. 

The case of the maintenance-of-way men, upon which a 
national strike is also threatened, has been brought into the 
Kansas court for settlement so far as that state is con- 
cerned; and there will be no srtike in this craft in Kansas. 

There are two interurban railway cases, in which strikes 
were threatened, but both grievances have been brought into 
the Kansas industrial court for adjudication and the roads 
are running without loss of service to the public or wages 
to the carmen. 

An interesting sidelight upon the situation occurred in 
Kansas City some weeks ago, when the bakers of Kansas 
City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., met for the purpose of 
ordering a strike. The Kansas bakers refused to go out be- 
cause of the law forbidding shut-downs in this industry, and 
the Missouri bakers declined to go out alone; so the matter 
was satisfactorily adjudicated without their going out in 
either city. 

The first order of the court, soon after its establishment, 
was in relation to a wage controversy brought by electrical 
linemen in the Edison Company at Topeka. It was for an 
increase in wages. The testimony clearly revealed the fact 
that the operatives of this department of public service were 
paid less than the trend of wages for expert service in the 
district. The whole subject of cost of living and comparison 
of wages was gone into. The court granted an increase of 
wages to the men that was entirely satisfactory to them and 
the corporation — which not only obeyed the order of the 



134 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

court promptly, but made the increase of wages retroactive 
to cover the period since the request for an increase was 
made. No time was lost by the employees during the ad- 
judication of this controversy, and the public received the 
benefit of continuous operation of service. 

In the order of the court a hint as to the spirit of this 
tribunal may be had from the following quotation: 

The court is very desirious to do nothing in this case which will 
unduly burden the respondent. However, it must be admitted that 
wages to labor must be considered before dividends to the investor, and 
tliat business which is unable to pay a fair rate of wage to its em- 
ployees will eventually have to liquidate. The Kansas law imposes upon 
the court the obligation, so far as it has power to do so, to assure to 
labor a fair wage and to capital a fair return. 

The Kansas court differentiated between a living wage 

and a fair wage, and it declared a fair waec to be that which 

will enable the workmen to procure for themselves and their 

families all the necessaries and a reasonable share of the 

comforts of life. 

They are entitled to a wage which will enable them by industry and 
economy not only to supply themselves with opportunities for intellectual 
advancement and reasonable recreation, but also to enable the parents 
working together to furnish to the children ample opportunities for in- 
telkctual and moral advancement, for education, and for an equal op- 
portunity in the race of life. A fair wage will also allow the frugal 
man to provide reasonably for sickness and old age. 

These are typical cases which have received adjudication, 
and in all of them the benefits arising from the fact that 
the court not only had power to make an impartial survey 
of the case, but also the power to render final decision, was 
generally recognized by the public. 

TJic "Outlazv" Railroad Strike Fails 

We suffered less in Kansas during the "outlaw" railroad 
strike than elsewhere. A few men in Rosedale and Argen- 
tine went out, and the attorney-general went to the field for 
the purpose of taking charge of the situation. After a few 
arrests M^erc made, practically all of the men returned to 
work. These cases have not been heard as yet by the court. 
In all the other railroad centers of the state there were no 
strikes, the leaders being opposed to placing themselves in 
violation of the law. 

The attitude of the court toward the interurban lines and 
the lines operating within the state has brought a new sense 
of security both to the operators and operatives. They real- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I35 

ize that the strike is no longer necessary; that all their griev- 
ances are justiciable in this court. 

In one decision, that of an interurban company, both 
wages and traffic rates were increased, and all three parties 
to the triangle — operators, employees, and the public — have 
recognized the justice of the decision. 

No grievances have beeng filed touching the packing, mill- 
ing, or clothing industries. A shut-down was threatened 
some weeks ago in the packing district and an investigation 
was started by the court, but the difficulty passed away with- 
out the necessity of court action. 

One of the direct results we have observed in the opera- 
tion of the court is that it reduces the poignancy of the in- 
dustrial quarrel. The mere presence of an impartial court 
seems to have encouraged both operators and operatives to 
approach each other in a new spirit of conciliation. 

Protection of the Public 

It is believed that the law is going to prove even more 
effective to wage-earners than to employers. Naturally the 
court is there to protect the weak and to guarantee justice. 
For fifteen or twenty years we have gone through a re- 
luctant process of regulating employing capital. Many wrongs ■ 
have been corrected through legislation. Indeed, practically all 
of the progress which has been made in the regulation of 
working conditions, fair wages, and hours of labor have come 
as the result of laws looking toward justice. 

In Kansas a few years ago the operators maintained that 
the most emphatic of all evils was the company store, in which 
miners made purchases with company script. This system was 
wiped out by State legislation. All of the safety appliances, 

working conditions in mines, modern bath houses for miners, 
■ and rescue stations were established by legislation. The rescue 

stations are operated at the state expense, Kansas being one of 

three states in the Union to adopt this system. 

The entire progress of legislation has been along lines 

favorable to the workers, and the Kansas Court of Industrial 

Relations, while holding this to be a paramount consideration, 

has had to look to the necessity of protecting the public as well 

as capital. 

The difference between the Kansas effort and the efforts of 



136 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

compulsory arbitration in Australia and other countries is that 
in laws such as Australia created the main feature is the protec- 
tion of arbitration agreements. In Kansas the main feature is 
the protection of the public. We are going upon the broad 
principle that society has the same right to take jurisdiction over 
offenses committed in the name of industrial warfare that she 
has had, through all the evolution of government, to take juris- 
diction over other wrongs. 

The quarrels between capital and labor are to-day the only 
ones against which government does not protect the public. We 
have done away with every form of private conflict from duel- 
ing to fist fighting, save alone the conflict between capital and 
labor. Eugene V. Debs, in his testimony in the Phelan case, 
said, "A strike is war, not necessarily war of blood and bullets, 
but a war in the sense that it is a conflict between two contend- 
ing interests or classes of interests." 

Kansas, which once sympathized altogether with labor, as 
did the general public, out of a realization in that early day that 
the employers were unduty oppressive, now realizes that if 
capital has been selfish and ruthless, labor has shown itself to 
be the same; and the general demand is that hereafter the 
public shall be considered and protected against industrial war. 
The real purpose of the Kansas law is to protect men in their 
right to work, rather than to deny them the right to quit. 

Our union labor friends forget that government has power 
to protect the good order of society and that in the exercise of 
this power it has taken jurisdiction over the most sacred re- 
lations of life. The relation of the husband and wife, of the 
parent and the child, come under the jurisdiction of our courts. 
Government says to fhe parent that the child shall not work 
during the years when it should be in attendance upon the 
schools of education. 

I think the finest definition I have ever read as to the pur- 
pose of government is that of John Adams, who declared that 
the chief aim of government is justice. This is the chief aim 
of all our human relations. There is no reason why industrial 
controversies should not be subject to the rule of justice. There 
is only one source upon which we may depend for its impar- 
tial standard, for its dignified utterance, for its impartial ad- 
ministration, and that source is government. 

The question of the hour is as to whether this government 
shall be regulated by all the people under the safeguard of 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I37 

constitutional majority, or whether it shall be regulated by 
the hard-and-fast unionism driven forward by radical and un- 
American labor leaders. If moral principles do not exist is 
American institutions for the establishment of government over 
industrial warfare, then American institutions are doomed to 
failure. 

Similar Laws in Other Communities 

The fundamental difference between the Kansas system and 
that proposed by the President's second Industrial Conference 
lies in the fact that the Washington conference, which pro- 
vided an elaborate and worthy system of conciliation, still rec- 
ognizes a controversy between capital and labor as being a 
private quarrel. There is no protection guaranteed to the pub- 
lic. The Kansas Court of Industrial Relations in its broad in- 
herent powers maintains the same possibilities of conciliation, 
welfare work and group discussion that are provided in the 
report of the second Industrial Conference, but when all of 
these efforts at conciliation have failed the Kansas court takes 
charge of the controversy and settles it upon terms which give 
proper recognition to the public, to labor, and to capital, and 
makes its decision final. 

I believe that ten State legislatures and two constitutional 
conventions have already considered the Kansas plan. Nebraska 
Avrote into her new constitution last winter an article making 
it mandatory upon the next legislature to adopt a Court of 
Industrial Relations, with the intention of placing all indus- 
trial controversies under the regulation of the State. Illinois 
is now considering — with prospect of success, I understand — ^the 
submission of such an article in her new constitution. New 
York, which considered the principle of the Kansas court, has 
made some legislation along compulsory arbitration which marks 
an advance. Massachusetts is also considering with deep in- 
terest industrial court legislation. Oklahoma is doing the same. 
The Chamber of Commerce of New Orleans tells me that the 
new Governor of Louisiana, Parker, hopes to secure the enact- 
ment of a program similar to ours. 

Considerable is said about the failure of the industrial courts 
of Australia and Canada to prevent strikes. In Australia the 
right to strike is not prohibited, and a provision exists in some 
of the Australian courts for an appeal to the Parliament, and 
an unfavorable vote in either branch of Parliament wipes out 



138 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the decision. Obviously, under some circumstances, the ten- 
dency would be to reduce the effectiveness of the court. Not- 
withstanding this, however, the codes of the Australian indus- 
trial courts have grown in strength, and Australia is still hold- 
ing fast to the process, adding new purpose and new scope to 
an effort which in the beginning was brought about by labor 
unions themselves for the purpose of giving effectiveness to 
grievances. 

The Canadian act of 1907, amended in 1910, provides that 
where a strike or lockout is threatened in the industries of rail- 
roads, steamships, telegraphs, telephones, and mines, and before 
such a strike or lockout can legally take place, the parties must 
refer their differences to a board for settlement. In Canada 
each party to the dispute appoints a member to the board of 
arbitration. This plan contains the essential defect of leaving 
the public out of consideration and of placing the responsibility 
of settlement in the hands of interested parties. 

Nevertheless, in 1916, out of 182 applications for adjudica- 
tion under the Canadian law, every strike was averted except 
two. On the other hand, in the United States, where we have 
no laws for the regulation of capital or labor, 321 strikes oc- 
curred during October, 1916, alone. The Labor Review for 
June, 1919, says that in 1918 there were 3181 strikes in the 
United States and 104 lockouts. In New York alone there were 
662 strikes and 21 lockouts. 

The most distinguished incident of effective remedy under 
an impartial tribunal was in the instance of the anthracite coal 
strike by the committee appointed by President Roosevelt. Ad- 
vocates of neither side were on this board. All were impar- 
tial men. It was, in effect, an industrial court. The agree- 
ments which resulted from that impartial tribunal have worked 
such effectiveness that there has been no general strike in the 
anthracite coal district since that time. 

Outlook for the Future 
Whatever tendencies may be marked at this hour touching 
the migration of labor indicate that Kansas is to receive the 
friendly consideration of conservative union men. Various 
threats have been made by Alexander Howat that union labor 
would leave the State. It is possible that the more radical 
type of union leadership will go to fields where they still have 
the privilege to menace government; but in Kansas the conser- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i39 

vative type, a large percentage of whom own their own homes, 
welcomes the advent of government into the situation, and I 
believe we will build in Kansas the mecca of a new type of 
industrial activity. 

In the other unionized trades the criticism of the Kansas 
law is confined very largely to the leaders, who realize that the 
success of the law reduces the need of the radical type of 
leadership and makes of the union a more benevolent type of 
organization, standing for the benefit of its members, the pro- 
tection of its contracts, and the progressive study of the wel- 
fare of the crafts. One of the most interesting experiments 
now being carried on under the industrial court is the welfare 
canvass which is now being made in the Pittsburgh district. 
Not only the miners themselves, but also their wives, are taking 
a keen interest in the effort of the court to establish better 
housing, working, and living conditions in all cases where ma- 
terial improvement is necessary. 

In conclusion, I am glad to say that there is a growing 
tendency to believe in the industrial court; and this confidence 
will grow with the growth of understanding of the decisive 
benefits it bestows upon labor. Capital, which did not welcome 
the court, is not fighting it openly and is, I believe somewhat 
impressed with the fact that impartial justice will not be as 
expensive as industrial warfare has been, because through the 
operation of the court we save economic waste. 



GOVERNOR ALLEN'S DISCOVERY^ 

The most significant thing that has happened to us within the 
last thirty years is the merging of our large industrial con- 
cerns into what we call trusts. This merging has given these 
concerns a power beside which the political state becomes a 
mere handcuffed David fighting Goliath. Our so-called efforts 
to "bust" them has been admittedly so unsuccessful as to make 
it almost humorous. This monopoly in industry follows so 
inevitably and so irrevocably the laws of industrial progress 
that no less an expert than the late J. Pierpont Morgan 
characterized our futile trust-busting efforts as attempts to un- 
scramble the egg. In our legislative halls their power is so 

1 Buffalo Commercial, April 20, 1920. 



140 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

strongly felt that we refer to it as the power of the invisible 
government. 

Now side by side with these gigantic merchantile combina- 
tions, union labor ever increasing in power has come to tb- 
front within the last twenty years. Even now in two of tK 
essential industries, mining and railroad, the mere talk of a 
strike is sufficient to throw the whole nation into a state of 
worry bordering on despair. And now that the railroad workers 
have gone into business on their own hook on a rather extensive 
scale, manufacturing wearing apparel to be sold to the workers 
at greatly reduced price, their power is growing by leaps and 
bounds. Within two years, or three or four at the most, it is 
alleged, no power now residing in the political state can hope 
to compete with them. They will be able to get for themselves 
what working hours they want, and their wages will be a mat- 
ter of their own determination. 

These are the two most remarkable things that have hap- 
pened to us within the last three decades. And while to most 
of our citizens these things are admitted to be of the utmost 
importance, except for idly ranting about them, or attempting 
to legislate against them in shameful futility, our so-called 
political leaders have not concerned themselves with these 
sinister portents of impending conflict. They go about like Don 
Quixote of old, mouthing fine phrases and storming windmills. 
They are as oblivous to the things that threaten us and to any 
effective remedy for them, as an ostrich with his head in the 
sand is oblivious to the man on horse-back pursuing him. 

Now this discovery which Governor Allen has made is 
nothing more than this : 

In compensation for the growth of power of our industrial 
organizations, labor on the one hand, and capital on the other, 
in order to compete with these two groups, and in order to 
protect the public against depredations from either or both, 
the political state must assume poiver greater than can be 
wielded by either or both of these. 

Hence: The state Industrial Court, which in this matter is 
the highest legitimate and legal expression of the will of the 
people, and which today is as superior to these groups as the 
Governor of Kansas is superior officially to the president of the 
Topeka chamber of commerce, or to the president of the brick- 
layer's union. 

This power invested in the Industrial Court is so reason- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 141 

able and so sane from the standpoint of public safety, and so 
simple to understand, that about all there is left to wonder about 
in connection with it is why some one hasn't thought of it 
before. The ordinary citizen who has time to read and to re- 
flect on the events of the day, who is blinded neither by parti- 
zan politics nor by desire to get a political office, has seen long 
ago the need for some such machinery to curb the growing 
power of the two opponents in industry, and since this Indus- 
trial Court promises to deal fairly with the claims of both, 
holding fast, hoAvever, as its highest ideal, to the welfare of 
the general public, he takes to the Kansas remedy for indus- 
trial disputes as a duck takes to water. 

Governor Allen is seeking to give us something vital and of 
immediate concern to us: — an increased production and conse- 
quent lowering of the cost of living through the abolition of 
the strike in order of size, smallest first. 



BRIEF EXCERPTS 

This [Kansas industrial court lawl is the most compre- 
hensive attempt 3^et made to protect the pubHc in cases of in- 
dustrial disputes likely to affect its interests. — Monthly Labor 
Review. 10:809. March, 1920. 

Compulsory Arbitration has worked well in New Zealand : 
since its introduction [to date, 1912] only four or five unim- 
portant strikes have taken place, sweating seems to have been 
practically eradicated, the decisions of the court, with a few 
trivial exceptions, have been loj^ally obeyed, and the industry 
of the colony has grown enormonsly.— Adams and Summer. 
Labor Problems, p. 324. 

Freedom of contract is a qualified and not an absolute right. 
There is no absolute freedom to do as one wills or to contract 
as one chooses. The guarantee of libertv does not withdraw 
from legislative supervision that wide department of activity 
which consists in the making of contracts or deny to govern- 
ment the power to provide restrictive safeguards. Liberty im- 
plies the absence of arbitrary restraint — not immunity from 
reasonable regulations or prohibitions imposed in the interests 
of the community.— C. B. 8z Q. R. R. Co. vs. Maauire. 210 U. S. 
549- 



142 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Three days ago in St. Louis there met the executive com- 
mittee of all the barrow-wheelers, the men who work in the 
sand-pits, that order of the railroad craft which is just be- 
low the maintenance of Way men, and thej' talked about their 
strike and by a vote of seven to two they declared that they 
would strike in every state in the Union except the state of 
Kansas (Applause), and in the State of Kansas they would 
bring their cause into the Court of Industrial Relations. — Gov. 
Henry J. Allen. Law and Labor. 2:88 April, 1920. 

"Down in the Kansas mining district," said Gov. Allen, 
"the miners have run about a day in a week in the summer- 
tima. Why? They didn't want to make any reserve of coal. 
They preferred to sell upon a market that was short. Un- 
der this law there is no shutdown. We have produced in the 
last three months more coal than ever was produced in any 
other five and a half months of operation. That means that 
the miners have been steadily employed and that next winter 
Kansas will begin with a coal reserve instead of a coal famine. 
— New York Times, April 23, 1920. 

If there are courts in this country set up (and there are 
federal and state courts) for the purpose of adjuticating 
claims and contentions between individual citizens, in the name 
of sense aren't the American people wise enough, big enough, 
strong enough and fair enough to set up in this country courts 
where differences between the employer and the employee 
groups can be adjudicated and adjusted without carrj'ing on in- 
dustrial warfare t^at means irremediable damage to the Ameri- 
can people and to the public? — Governor John J. Cornwell ofi 
West Virginia. Law and Labor. 2:83. April, 1920. 

Perhaps nothing so completely demonstrates the strength of 
the New Zealand system of arbitration and its underlying basis 
of social justice, as the Dominion's experiences with syndicalism 
and the efforts of the syndicalists to carry out a general strike, 
during the latter part of 191 1, 1912, and 1913. The effort was 
a complete failure ; and although more than fifty strikes were 
called during the period, all of them were lost; direct action 
was thoroughly discredited ; the arbitration system and the 
government which stood sponsor for it emerged from the con- 
test with added glory. — Mote. Industrial Arbitration, p. 145. 

It is claimed that involuntary servitude is involved in com- 
pulsory arbitration. But that cannot be called involuntary ser- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 143 

vitude into which a man voluntarily enters. Nobody is obliged 
to become an engineer or a fireman, but if a man voluntarily 
becomes an engineer or a fireman, the government has the 
power to make him keep his contract. This was expressly held 
by the Supreme Court in Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 281. 
The court said that a service which was knowingly and will- 
ingly entered into could not be called involuntary.— Everett P. 
Wheeler, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 
7:85. January, 1917. 

The purpose, of the section of the bill at which the amend- 
ment is aimed is to substitute law for force in the settlement 
of disputes between citizens. The entire principle of orderly 
government is involved. It is only from the tolerant indiffer- 
ence of the American people, inculcated by the great fortune 
which we have enjoyed and the abounding riches of the land, 
that we have tolerated so long the violence, the intimidation, 
the suffering, and the death which have come from the common 
practice of the use of force in the form of the suppression of 
industries essential to life as a means of settling private di?^ 
putes. — Senator Miles Poindexter, Congressional Record, 
December 18, 1919. 

The Industrial Court [of Kansas] provides an open door 
for labor; a tribunal to see that labor gets all that it is en- 
titled to get and gets it without the old strong-arm methixls 
of strikes and riots. It pledges the good faith of the State 
to see that labor's rights are protected and at the same time 
that capital is not endangered. But above all, the Kansas In- 
dustrial Court bill is a public-welfare measure. It is not, prop- 
erly speaking, an arbitration bill. It is not, as labor represen- 
tatives call it, an "antistrike" bill. It is a bill to give the pub- 
lic that protection which the people can not get outside of 
government activity, and every restriction of the measure on 
capital and on labor alike is merely incidental to the protection 
of the people. — Kansas City {Kan.) Times. 

If the public is disposed to protect absolutely everyone 
against imposition on the part of capital or labor it should 
not depend upon voluntary arbitration but should establish and 
administer laws which will have complete jurisdiction over 
both groups of citizens, and then to rely upon the continuance 
without interruption of the enforcement of law and order, so 
that every individual or interest shall be protected in freedom 



144 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of action or nonaction so long as there is no opposition to 
any of the statutes in force. Employers and the body of em- 
ployes clearly recognize that it is for the pecuniary niterest ol 
both to maintain peaceful and friendly relations, and every 
honestminded person admits this will redound to the benefit and 
comfort of the general public. — Judge Gary, Chairman of Ex- 
ecutive Board, U. S. Steel Corporation. Iron Trade Review. 
66:171. January 8, 1920. 

It is hereby declared and determined to be necessary for 
the public peace, health and general welfare of the people of 
this state that the industries, employments, public utilities and 
common carriers herein specified shall be operated with rea- 
sonable continuity and efificiency in order that the people of 
this state may live in peace and security, and be supplied with 
the necessaries of life. No person, firm, corporation, or asso- 
ciation of persons shall in any manner or to any extent, will- 
fully hinder, delay, limit or suspend such continuous and ef- 
ficient operation for the purpose of evading the purpose and 
intent of the provisions of this act; nor shall any person, firm, 
corporation, or association of persons do any act or neglect or 
refuse to perform any duty herein enjoined with the intent to 
hinder, delay, limit or suspend such continuous and efficient 
operation as aforesaid, except under the terms and conditions 
provided by this act. — Section 6 of the Kansas Industrial Court 
Law, 1920. 

No capitaUst has the right to close down his works in order 
that he may make a higher profit after a while while he freezes 
the American people for lack of fuel. No laborer has the 
right to go out and ahut off the production of coal at the be- 
ginning of November, when winter is just beginning, in order 
that he may have a higher wage or shorter hours. 

When that sort of thing occurs, then these 80,000,000 people 
have something to say; and, as far as I am concerned, and I 
represent them here— and through my voice, if through nobody 
else's — they shall be heard; and their voice is, "A plague upon 
both your houses." Obey the law. "Submit your differences 
to just arbitrament. Leave me and my wife and my children 
free of murder at your hands," whether by capitalists closing 
down the coal mines or by labor closing them down, or whether 
by capital or labor, either one or both, .^^hutting off trans- 
portation.— .9fwafor John Sharp Williams, Congressional Record 
December 18, 1919. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I45 

Take for example the [Railroad] strike that was threatened 
last August [1916]. I was in Chicago at the time, and with a 
good many other New Yorkers was much in doubt as to 
whether I could exercise the right to get home. In Chicago dur- 
ing that last week before the fatal Monday, the 4th of Septem- 
ber, the trains were running all night, bringing provisions into 
that city which on the following Monday under the decree of 
the brotherhood was to be blockaded. The city was to get no 
milk, no wheat, no grain, no food of any sort — if was to be 
starved out. Is that a right to be protected by the constitution — 
the right to starve people? The cities in this counry now con- 
tain half of the whole American population. The fact that we 
live in cities prevents us from raising our own food. Is it not 
within the power of the government to provide a method by 
which such forcible blockades can be prevented? — Everett P. 
Wheeler. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 
7:84. January, 1917. 

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States re- 
cites that the Constitution is adopted, among other purposes, 
to insure domestic tranquillity. Without some means of pre- 
vention of nation-wide railroad strikes there can be no assur- 
ance of domestic tranquillity in this country. By the Con- 
stitution Congress is given power to regulate commerce among 
the several States. To regulate commerce among the several 
States certainly includes the power to prevent interference 
therewith or extinction thereof; without railroad transporta- 
tion there can be but little commerce amojjg the states. In- 
rerference with the United States mail is unlawful and punish- 
able. Why should not interference with interstate commerce be 
made unlawful and punishable? Transmission of the mail is 
only one phase of interstate commerce. Transportation of 
passengers and freight is of more vital importance than trans- 
mission of mail. — Senator Henry L. Myers. Congressional 
Record. December 8, 1919. 

Judges decide questions of rent between landlord and tenant 
in Ireland. Judges in this country run railroads as receivers 
and fix prices of all kinds for laborers and shippers, for goods 
and supplies. Judges decide between opposing interests as to 
amount of alimony, allowances in Probate Court, and awards 
for damages. In bankruptcy and receivership proceeding they 
deal with the most complicated questions of commerce and fi- 



146 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

nance. They have power greater than the jury in settling the 
prices at which we sell our legs and arms to the railroad com- 
panies at unguarded grade crossings. Amateur judges and pro- 
fessional judges have shown themselves able in all kinds of 
arbitration proceedings to make decisions that were just and 
acceptable to both sides. Even if the presiding judge of the 
arbitration court with a casting vote were a "tool of the cap- 
italists" the grist of this mill could not but be better than the 
grist of the injunction mill. — Henry D. Lloyd in "Capital and 
Labor" p. 185. 

There is no doubt that the arbitration acts in Australia have 
done much good in the way of abolishing sweating in factories 
and other places. It must also be conceded that the great ex- 
pansion of unionism of late years (about 60 per cent of working 
men, and over 20 per cent of working women in Australia are 
members of trades-unions) has been aided by arbitration, be- 
cause of its compulsory rule that all must register in an in- 
dustrial body before they can have any status in the court. 

Then again, the whole matter of "preference to unionists" 
may be said to lie at the door of industrial arbitration, since 
it compels men to organize themselves in a union to secure ad- 
vantages which those outside unions cannot obtain. That will 
be admitted by most workers in Australia. But for the arbitra- 
tion courts, and its compulsory registration requirements, it is 
doubtful whether we would have ever had the "preference to 
unionists" clause. We must admit then that we have secured 
some advantages from arbitration, if only from the point of 
making us strong industrially. — W. F. Ahearn. Reconstruction. 
2 124. January, 1920. 

Under the present conditions, the railway employees feel that 
they cannot surrender their right to strike. The necessity would 
no longer exist for the exercise of this power, if there were a 
wage commission which would secure them just wages. 

A strike in the army or navy is mutiny and uni- 
versally punished as such. The same principle is applied to 
seamen because of the public necessity involved. A strike 
among postal clerks, as among the teachers of our public 
schools, would be unthinkable. In all these cases the employ- 
ment, to borrow a legal phrase, is affected with a public use; 
and this of necessity qualifies the right of free concerted ac- 
tion which exists in private employments. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 147 

However, if the principle be accepted that there are certain 
classes of service thus affected with a public interest and men 
who enter them are not free concertedly to quit the service, 
then these men must be guarded in the matter of wages and con- 
ditions by public protection; and this it is believed can best 
be done through an interstate wage commission. — Report of the 
Board of Arbitration in the Matter of the Controversy be- 
tween the Eastern Railroads, and the Brotherhood of Locomo- 
tive Engineers, 1912. 

It [compulsory arbitration] has often been supposed to have 
the effect of weaking organization among the workers, but such 
is not the case in Australia, where the unions are largely in- 
strumental in initiating board proceedings and nominating board 
members. The law of Queensland is partially due to the insis- 
tence of trade unions upon legal regulation Taking Australia 
as a whole we find that, according to Mr. Knibbs, the Com- 
monwealth statistician, the estimated membership of all unions 
increased from 54,888 in 1891 to 97,174 in 1901. Wage regula- 
tion during this period was at a minimum. But from 1901 to 
1912 the number of. union members increased from 97,174 to 
433,224. This increase has been accompanied by the concentra- 
tion of members into larger unions. Federated unions, en- 
couraged by the Commonwealth act, are increasing in number 
In New Zealand, under compulsory arbitration, organization 
has been especially encouraged. The membership of the em- 
ployees' industrial unions increased from 8,230 in 1896 to 71,54^1 
in 1913. Likewise, in Western AustraHa and New South 
Wales, where trade unions are registered under the arbitration 
act, unionism has been strengthened and consolidated. — Paul S. 
Collier. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 
7:33. January, 191 7. 

My opinion is that when the Kansas law has been upon 
our statute books for a year, its best friends will be the mem- 
bers of union labor, because it offers to them final decision. 
Continuously the Court is deliberating upon labor conditions, 
housing conditions, living conditions, working conditions ; and 
the miners of the bituminous district whose activity brought on 
the Court are today eargerly and anxiously waiting, hoping for 
the success of the Court. Why? Because it keeps them in 
continuous employment. Their radical leaders cannot call them 
out on strike. That is one reason, and the other reason is that 



148 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

it provides that the mining operators shall preserve a reason- 
able continuity of operation which has not been done in past 
years in Kansas, where the coal mines have operated during the 
summer months about one day a week. Why? Well, it seems 
to be a more attractive proposition to sell coal on a market 
that is a little short of coal than on any other sort of market; 
and so our mining operators have operated in that way. The 
new law will make it not only possible for the miners to work 
the summer through, but it will stabilize the coal business ; and 
we in Kansas will begin the winter with a coal reserve, instead 
of a coal famine; and it is a very desirable thing; the law 
works both ways. — Gov. Henry J. Allen. Law and Labor. 2 iSg. 
April, 1920 

WORK OF STATE BOARDS OF VOLUNTARY ARBITRATION 
AND CONCILIATION! 

Years Number Settled by Settled by 

State covered of strikes arbitration conciliation 

Illinois 1895-1899 1128 7 22 

Massachusetts .... 1894-1900 516 53 72 

New York 1894-1900 2156 11 76 

Ohio 1893-1899 744 8 35 

* Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems, p. 299. 



NEGATIVE DISCUSSION 

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION IN THE RAIL- 
ROAD ENGINEERS' AWARD^ 

The most important recent development in industrial affairs 
is the award of the special commission appointed to adjust the 
differences between the eastern railroad companies and their 
organized locomotive engineers. In addition to performing that 
duty the commission made a recommendation in comparison 
with which all other issues dwindle into insignificance. This 
recommendation proposes compulsory arbitration to secure "per- 
manent peace" between the railroads and their employes. 

Everybody recognizes that peace is a desirable goal, that 
war is destructive and an interruption of progress. But in our 
zeal to reach this ideal let us beware lest we sacrifice justice 
and freedom to peace; lest we forget the ancient chains that 
held men in bondage. Peace under this fair sounding name 
is not of a nature to promote human welfare. 

It is an unworthy desire that wants peace at any price, for 
we know that peace may follow the recognition of just claims 
and ideals, and "peace" may exist because men are shackled, 
powerless to protect themselves. Only peace with honor and 
freedom will be tolerated by men of nobler ideals. Compulsory 
arbitration means not peace of that sort,— but peace at any 
price, any sacrifice of rights, liberty and individuality, while 
the moral self grows flabby and soft. 

Because of the importance of the board's recommendation, it 
behooves organized labor to study the award and the recom- 
mendation with greatest care. 

The board making the report was selected to adjust diffi- 
culties arising out of specific wage demands. Last January the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineer presented to the railroads 
a series of proposals involving uniform rates of pay, uniform 
classifications of service, and uniform working rules through- 
out the eastern division. 

* Samuel Gompers, President, American Federation of Labor. Ameri- 
can Federationist. 20:17-31. January, 1913. 



ISO COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

There are fifty-two railroads in the eastern division, com- 
prising practically all roads east of Chicago and north of the 
Norfolk and Western Railroad. 

In 1910 these railroads operated more than one-fourth of 
the total mileage of American railroads, or over 66,000 miles 
of track. They carried about one-half of the freight traffic of 
the United States and more than two-fifths of the passengers. 
The companies in 1910 paid their engineers about $38,000,000 in 
wages, or 41 per cent of the wages received by railroad en- 
gineers that year. The population of the region served by these 
railroads included more than 40 per cent, of the total popula- 
tion of the United States. Approximately 30,000 engineers par- 
ticipated in the concerted movement to better their working 
conditions and to increase wages. From these figures the im- 
portance of the labor dispute becomes at once apparent. The 
interests involved were of tremendous magnitude. 

The representatives of the engineers met those of the rail- 
roads in conference three times during the month of March. 
The railroads refused to grant the demands of the men in 
whole or in part, on the ground that they were financially 
unable to pay the wage increases. The engineers then took a 
strike vote by which 93 per cent of the men manifested their 
readiness to strike. At this crisis Judge Martin A. Knapp, 
head of the United States Commerce Court, and Charles P. 
Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, intervened and 
urged that methods of peaceful mediation be tried before re- 
sorting to a strike. Their efforts resulted in securing the con- 
sent of Warren S. Stone, cTiief of the engineers, and J. C. 
Stuart, chairman of the Conference Committee of Managers, 
to consult with them. Proposals of mediation were rejected, 
but eventually both parties agreed to submit their differences to 
a board of arbitration. 

To serve on this board the engineers selected P. H. Mor- 
rissey, former Grand Master of the Brotherhood of Railroad 
Trainmen ; the railroads selected Daniel Willard, president of 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court appointed the five other members of the board. 
They were Oscar S. Straus of New York; Charles R. Van Hise, 
president of Wisconsin University; Albert Shaw, editor of the 
Review of Reviews ; Frederick N. Judson of St. Louis ; and 
Otto M. Eidlitz, former president of the Building Trades Asso- 
ciation of New York. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 151 

After finishing these terms of the award the board extended 
its own jurisdiction and took up what it pleased to term the 
"broader aspects" of the problem. It pointed out a new phase 
of development, that is, the concerted action of the engineers 
upon the fifty-two roads of the Eastern Division, and called 
attention > to the fact that there had never been a strike on all 
the roads in any district; colossal interests were involved; the 
convenience and interests of the public are of greater im- 
portance than any other issue; the commission emphasized the 
wealth and size of the district concerned, and the number of 
people living therein; all these interests would be affected by 
a strike among the railroad engineers to secure fairer wages. 

Evidently the very elements, strength and solidarity, that 
made concerted action successful, are deemed just cause for 
restricting freedom of action among the engineers. It is only 
natural that the workingmen should recognize in the suggestion 
to eliminate the strike, a method of exploiting them. 

Since the interests of the public are paramount to all other 
factors concerned in a railroad strike, it is therefore imperative, 
the report affirms, that some other way than the strike be found 
to settle differences between the railroads and their employes. 
The merits of the Erdman Act and the Canadian Industrial 
Disputes Act were considered, but declared inadequate. There 
is a better way, the commission decided. Railroads are sub- 
ject to the Interstate Commerce Commission and various state 
commissions, but their employes are not. Since the board of 
arbitration considered this a disparity of status, it recommended 
the creation of federal and state wage commissions which 
shall exercise functions regarding workers engaged in work 
upon public utilities, analogous to those exercised with regard 
to capital by the public service commissions already in ex- 
istence. The award concludes with this paragraph : 

It is well understood by the board that the problem for which the 
above plan is a suggested solution is a complex and difficult one. The 
suggestion, however, grows out of a profound conviction that the food 
and clothing of our people, the industries and the general welfare of 
the nation can not be permitted to depend upon the policies and the 
dictates of any particular group of men, whether employers or em- 
ployes, nor upon the determination of a group of employers and em- 
ployes combined. The public utilities of the nation are of such funda- 
mental importance to the whole people that their operation must not be 
interrupted, and means must be worked out which will guarantee this 
result. 

The report was made by the five members of the board ap- 
pointed by the government officials and accepted by the repre- 
sentatives of the railroads. 



152 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Mr. Morrissey, the representative of the engineers, dissented 
from the award of the board. He wrote an individual report 
in which he contends that the award of the board will have 
the effect of retarding the progress of arbitration in the settle- 
ment of industrial disputes in connection with railroads. The 
award, he asserted, does not settle the important principles 
raised by the engineers and can be only temporary because it 
is based upon statistics that not only were unreliable for the 
purposes for which the board used them, but also were wrongly 
apphed. He dissents from the recommendation that wage com- 
missions with power of compulsory arbitration be established, 
although such commissions might fittingly serve other functions. 
In view of that award just made Mr. Morrissey suggested that 
hereafter all arbitration boards shall be so constituted that no 
one group to the arbitration should have a majority of the 
board of arbitrators. 

Mr. Morrissey's dissenting report concludes with this signi- 
ficant statement: 

I wish to emphasize my dissent from the recommendation of the 
board which in its effect virtually means compulsory arbitration for the 
railroads and their employes. Regardless of any probable constitutional 
prohibitions which might operate against it being adopted, it is wholly 
impracticable. The progress toward the settlement of disputes between 
the railways and their employes without recourse to industrial warfare 
has been marked. There is nothing under present conditions to pre- 
vent its continuance. It will never be perfect, but even so it will be 
immeasurably better than it would be under conditions such as the board 
propose. The peace that would satisfy such an ideal condition as that 
had in mind by those making the recommendation, would be too dearly 
bought even if it could be attained. To insure the permanent industrial 
peace so much desired will require a broader statesmanship than that 
which would shackle the rights of a large group of our citizens. 

To sum up ; the principal labor conceptions enunciated by 
the board of arbitration for the eastern railroads and their 
engineers are: (i) There are three parties interested in every 
industrial dispute, the employers, the employes, and the pubHc; 
the interests of the last are paramount: (2) A fair wage should 
be paid to employes. (3) Capital and labor should be subject to 
the same regulations ; hence federal and state wage commis- 
sions with compulsory powers should be established. Organized 
labor takes issue with the first and the second principle stated. 

The "public" has traveled a long journey since the old days 
when the railroad kings lightly ignored their claims to con- 
sideration with "the public be damned" or "there's nothing to 
arbitrate" with labor. It would appear that when this long suf- 
fering, just and impartial public gains the controlling voice in 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I53 

the arbitration tribunals, it is quite willing to consign other 
people to the condition previously allotted the public. It is 
a wise policy that yields absolutely to no agents' control over 
liberty and justice. The great abstract something called the pub- 
lic is made up of individuals of fallible judgment, human im- 
pulses, with motives that may be selfish and acquisitive. 

The five men who represented the public on this arbitration 
board regard labor (human) as a material essential to the satis- 
faction of public needs and desires, and of the same nature with 
capital, to be regulated and restricted in the same way and 
degree. In order that the public may be fed, clothed, served 
without intermission and inconvenience, labor (again we say 
human) shall lay aside any claim to what it may consider its 
rights and peacefully accept what others may deem good for 
it. 

If this award, with its suggestions purporting to be in the 
interests of the general welfare, is an illustration of what the 
working people are to expect from compulsory arbitration, it is 
little to be wondered at that workingmen look upon the pro- 
posal with not only distrust but with aversion and antagonism. 

An account by the Wall Street financial expert writer sug- 
gests that perhaps the motives back of compulsory arbitration 
are not altogether altruistic and humanitarian. It is in part : 

The report of the arbitration commission is regarded by railroads as 
a distinct victory. The increase in wages is not a high price to pay 
for the weapon of defense fashioned and placed in their hands — the 
proposition to create Federal and State wage commissions with arbitrary 
powers to make and enforce terms of settlement of disputes. 

Organized labor has seen and felt_ this danger and realizes that the 
report of the arbitration _ commission is an entering wedge to discussion 
and action on an issue it would like to delay or dodge. The issue is 
not a new one, but this is the first time the railroads have been able to 
get it before the law-making powers as an authorized expression of a 
body claiming to represent the public. The five outside commissioners 
felt a keen sense of the duty they owed the public in this investigation 
by refusing compensation for their five months of service on the "board 
though they might as well have pocketed $20,000 apiece. This action 
is added dignity and impressiveness to the finding. 

The report of the wage commission is at once a club and a wedge, 
and organized labor identified with the utilities systems will be slow to 
give employers a chance to invoke popular sympathy and cooperation for 
suppression of violent methods. 

This suspicion is further increased by the reflection that 
the great mass of individuals which make up all of the pub- 
lic has been willing to put up with coal strikes, street-car strikes, 
railroad strikes, strikes affecting all manner of industries upon 
which it depends for supplies, and has not passed compulsory 
arbitration laws to protect its own interests. 



154 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

It is argued that the establishment of federal and state 
commissions for the regulation of wages will place "capital and 
labor on equality," which does not exist under the present in- 
terstate commerce provisions. On the surface, that may seem 
a fair conclusion; but in reality it leaves out of consideration 
the fundamental and inherent difference between labor and 
capital, the relative influence of each, and how deep-seated and 
dominant are the self-interest motives. 

It is now accepted as fact that the bargaining power of the 
individual employe is far inferior to that of the employer. 

Only by union of the individuals has the weaker element 
been made strong enough to deal with the employer on an equal 
footing. 

Back of the worker's collective demands and propositions 
has always been the only argument of any persuasive influence 
upon employers — power. 

This reserve power is the right to strike. 

In the business world of today the conflict of interests is 
so intense, the struggle for profits so keen and so vital that 
any factor not able to defend itself by power or influence that 
can enforce compliance, need not anticipate a pleasant or a 
prolonged existence. If men of labor surrender their right 
to strike, they will be in the business world as guileless sheep 
among the grey wolves. Such an action would place them in 
the same category with sheep, not only from the defensive as- 
pect, but also from the intellectual. Men are in business for 
profits. Hence, it is perfectly natural that employers should 
ever seek to entrench their own interests, and grudgingly di- 
minish their share. 

Of late years the merging of employers' interests, the trust 
organization, has made it necessary for the government to in- 
tervene for the protection of the public as consumers. It would 
be a far different matter for the government to intervene again, 
but in the interest of the employers. That such would be the 
result of this proposal to estabhsh compulsory arbitration is 
acknowledged — even the Wall Street interpreter admits that the 
plan is a club and a wedge. 

Once disarm the workers of their right to self-ownership, 
exploitation and some form of slavery will inevitably follow. 
Those who favor the plan claim that the awards of the arbitra- 
tion tribunals will guarantee justice. This view is hopeful 
but not warranted. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I5S 

Even the most ardent advocates of international arbitration 
accept certain matters as not justifiable. Any infringement 
upon those fundamental rights will be resisted by force by any 
nation. However much we may believe in the brotherhood of 
man and the compelling loftier influences of love, yet we do 
not abandon our police system. We know that men have nobler 
impulses and better selves ; we know that these are increasingly 
asserting themselves ; but we also know that removal of 
restraints upon the less worthy manifestations will not neces- 
sarily lead to the development of the higher. The strong 
arm of society lays hold upon those who offend. Men who 
when robbed of their cloaks, meekly yielded up their coats also, 
would be compelled to seek a tropical clime. Men who can 
not or will not reinforce their right to individual considera- 
tion or justice contribute to the development of non-social 
traits in others. Labor would not be justified in anticipating 
justice as a result of yielding up its power of self-protection. 

But the advocates of compulsory arbitration claim, labor 
would be yielding no more by submitting to the awards of a 
wage commission than the railroads yield in submitting to the 
awards of the Interstate Commerce Commission. There is a 
seeming analogy which will not bear close examination. In 
accepting regulation determined by the Commission, the rail- 
roads reduce the dividends paid upon a capitalization that bears 
no relation to actual investments, but has been created by 
many curious and questionable devices. Such regulations com- 
pel the furnishing to the public of better and more impar- 
tial service and rates. To be sure, the "right" of the com- 
pany "to manage its own business" is restricted, excessive 
charges and large dividends are somewhat limited; but those 
are matters that never existed as just rights. Nor were they 
more than external possessions of the company, for the owners, 
the managers, the officers, still retain their own physical per- 
sonal liberty and freedom unimpaired. Should these wage 
commissions be established with compulsory power to fix wages 
and working conditions, to make their awards effective, penal- 
ties for violation must follow. When wages, hours or working 
conditions are decided, the workingmen must give of their own 
physical power for the stipulated allotment. If their sense of 
injustice be so aroused that they strike, they will be fined or 
sent to jail, or both. Freedom of choice, personal liberty, is 
gone. These awards are dealing with matters inseparable from 



iSfl COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the living pulsating human being. Compulsory arbitration is 
but another form of industrial bondage. 

This supposes decisions in favor of the employers and not 
impartial awards, the advocates object. But is any other hypo- 
thesis probable? These compulsory arbitration commissions 
would be composed of representatives of the three parties — em- 
ployers, employes, and the public. The employers are men of 
influence in the political, industrial, and financial circles. Their 
connections, their inside knowledge, give their opinions and 
demands a potential force that may be only a subtle, psj'cholog- 
ical influence or of a less refined nature. There is a prestige 
accorded to men who have places of control that secures for 
them consideration. 

Then, too, with compulsory arbitration, the fact that all 
the great instrumentalities and channels of communication are 
under the control of the employing interests, would still further 
emphasize the disparity in influence between the employers and 
the workers. The employers own the great public press and 
control their policy; control the telegraphs, the telephones, and 
the cables; control the gathering of information, its prepara- 
tion, and editing, and thereby control the statement of facts, 
and the presentation of conditions and causes actuating motives. 
By this power the press determines what the public shall know 
and what conclusions it shall deduce. With this condition of 
affairs, how are the toilers to get their side of the story pre- 
sented to the public; how are they to tell the world the in- 
justice and grievances that should be changed, if humanity is 
to be accorded an equal chance? 

Where, indeed, is protection accorded to workers equal to 
that accorded employers? 

Labor shorn of its power would be a great inert, spineless 
mass, as likely to inspire respect and consideration as a jelly- 
fish. 

The third party, the public, is interested from the consumers' 
standpoint, and hence, regarded as an impartial judge of the 
employers' and employes' claims. This third partj', the con- 
sumers, is not always the absolute and unerring arbitrator de- 
picted. It is chiefly interested in having its wants satisfied, its 
conveniences served; although it may intellectually recognize 
wrongs and grant that they should be corrected, practical and 
financial influences will not infrequently overrule such con- 
victions in favor of the apparently easiest solution of the dif- 



I 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i57 

ficulty even if the results are but temporary, which means vic- 
tory for the stronger. Such was the experience of the laundry 
workers of New York. Even though harrowing and revolt- 
ing details connected with the cleansing of the city's dirty 
linen were vividly and specifically revealed to the public, the 
conscience of this impartial arbitrator remained dormant. The 
public failed to rise to expected heights. 

After all, is the public disinterested? Do we not rather 
find it composed of different groups, some whose interests are 
similar to those of the employers involved, and who hence 
naturally sympathize with them and their position? There are 
many whose financial welfare is identical with that of the em- 
ployer, who are dependent upon his prosperity. There are many 
whose industrial experience as workmen would inevitably pre- 
dispose them to approve the actions and demands of the em- 
ployes upon any question. There are many selfish and indif- 
ferent to the moral and ethical values of any issue that conflicts 
with their own comfort. There are some few with broader 
sympathies and keener and deeper understanding of human 
nature, who try to maintain the dispassionate attitude of jus- 
tice toward both, but upon some critical and vital issue can 
the}^ completely overcome the formative, determining influences 
of environment, instruction, and the indefinable psychic in- 
fluences of their own kind? It is a serious and dangerous mat- 
ter to entrust the determination of issues which concern the 
life, the happiness, the welfare, and freedom of the workers 
into the hands of other men who do not and can not know 
the toilers' world in which they live, move, and have their 
being. 

Government regulation has two classes of advocates ; one 
hopes thereby to insure the welfare of the people, the other 
hopes to insure his own continuity of control. It is often hard 
for the average man to discern the first from the second, and 
frequently seekers for the commonweal are deluded into follow- 
ing false leaders and trjdng a rem.edy that is worse than the 
disease. 

Government regulation is a remedy frequently suggested for 
all manner of political, social and economic evils, resulting from 
liiodcrn industrial chicanery and imcompetency.. It is not in 
itself a universal good or evil ; its application, or otherwise, 
must be determined by the individual character of the principles 
involved in the situation. 



15? COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

If the compulsory element is introduced and government ma- 
chinery is invoked in determining industrial disputes, then it 
devolves upon the government to enforce any and all awards 
that thus become the lav^ of the land, in order to protect the 
government from contempt. Should the employer object to the 
decision and award he may go out of business, -which may in- 
volve financial loss, or he may enter upon another business 
career ; or if he violates the terms of the award, he can be 
held financially liable. But should the emploj'e feel that an 
award and decision have been ever so grossly unfair and un- 
just, what recourse is open to them? To accept the award and 
sullenly work as slaves under conditions which are not only 
onerous to them, but enforced by all the powers of govern- 
ment? Or rebel and go on "illegal strike"? In the latter event, 
they may be all arrested, tried, and sentenced to fines or im- 
prisonment. But supposing fines, how collect them? In lieu 
of means or willingness to pay fines, several thousands may be 
sent to jail. But how, all at one time, or in relay squads? 

Decisions can not be enforced in the face of the united and 
determined resistance of the people to tyranny, and in defense 
of freedom. You can not stop strikes by law; you can not, 
at least in the United States in this year of grace, enforce in- 
voluntary servitude upon unconvicted American citizen work- 
men. Even if strikes could be made illegal, there would be no 
guarantee of industrial peace. A strike is not an aggressive act, 
it is not an affirmative act, it is negative. It is expressed by 
non-resistance. It is the state of doing nothing. It is ex- 
pressed by men folding their arms or holding them to their 
sides, a refusal to expend their physical and mental powers 
in service for another. And so long as freedom in its faintest 
concept shall obtain in our country, so long as workmen, citi- 
zens of the United States, may claim the rights and the 
guarantees of the Constitution of the United States and of the 
several States, they can not by law be forced to expend their 
labor power, which is part of their very life and being, in the 
service of another. 

The enactment of compulsory arbitration is no remedy for 
strikes. This fact is proven wherever the effort has been made. 
All agree that strikes should be avoided wherever possible, and 
every honorable effort made to avert them. But the very best 
evidence is afforded by the board of arbitration's award in the 
case under consideration, that strikes are more generally 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES iS9 

avoided and brought to a minimum in number when the workers 
are organized, capable of ascertaining and maintaining their 
rights, with the power and the right to strike, and yet sub- 
mitting their cause as they submitted this case to an arbitration 
board, the majority of whom were predisposed against them. 

Even though the award in regard to wages, hours, and con- 
ditions of employment is not entirely satisfactory, it has been 
accepted, and will be complied with by the men and the organi- 
zation affected. But, as Mr. Morrissey, a member of the board, 
points out, the terms are unjust, inapplicable and can not in any 
way be regarded as at all permanent. But be that as it may, 
the board of arbitrators in this case could well have afforded 
to have allowed its award upon the conditions of labor to stand, 
without traveling far beyond the purpose for which it was 
called into existence and entering into a realm dangerously 
trespassing upon the rights of man and guaranteed American 
citizenship. 

Would a compulsory arbitration law, with its provisions en- 
forced by the government, prove a deterrent to strikes? We 
think not. But even if it did, such a law would only repress 
the feeling of anger and resentment at unjust decisions until the 
repressed current would burst through all control, sweeping 
everything before it in the revulsion of feeling. The pages 
of the French Revolution afford example after example of 
cumulative revulsion resulting from tyranny and repression. As 
the OUTLOOK truly observes : "Compulsory arbitration 
would promote rather than prevent labor wars, unless it can 
be so framed as to secure the consent of the trainmen,"— which 
is to say must be voluntary instead of compulsory. 

As already stated, strikes should be avoided whenever pos- 
sible, but is a strike essentially an evil? As Dr. Lyman Abbott 
said, in discussing international arbitration treaties : 

What we should be especially interested in, is not that this be a move- 
ment for peace, but that it be a movement for justice. Peace has its 
tragedies, no less than war. 

What the right of resistance to injustice is in the political 
world, the right to strike, to cease work, is in the industrial. 

A reserve power held in abeyance to be used only in the 
interests of justice when all other means have failed. 

The right to strike must be retained if the working men 
would retain the position of free men. 

A strike, like any other power, is not to be used flippantly. 



i6o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

It has been one of the most effective means with which the 
workers have fought their way to higher elevations. Workers 
have ever been the oppressed class, but slowly, steadily, they 
have forged their way upward from slavery to serfdom, from 
serfdom to freedom. Then as freemen they have fought to 
maintain the right to strike, to dispose of their working power 
as they deem best, to associate themselves together to promote 
their general welfare. Now come vested interests seeking again 
to reduce the workers to a condition in which they may be 
more readily exploited. The danger threatens in the form of 
governmental intervention and regulation of industrial relations 
through judicial machinery, and the jails. In the interests of 
industrial continuity, the workers may not cease work when 
they please. 

The toilers are to lose their defensive weapon. The Govern- 
ment directs that they shall unfold their arms, and forces them 
to work. The workers are to return to the condition which pre- 
vailed under the old medieval conspiracy laws, when men were 
jailed, branded, or hanged on the charge that they had "robbed 
their employers of their labor." Strikes are to be made illegal. 

Must it come that to regain freedom from slavery the work- 
ers must fight the Government? That for the purpose of pre- 
venting strikes and maintaining industry undisturbed, com- 
pulsory arbitration must set unconstitutional limitations on the 
freedom of the great masses of the people? However much we 
may regret the economic loss, suffering and inconvenience at- 
tending strikes, there is involved that which is of greater 
moment. What should be the object of our endeavors is not a 
cure, not a palliative, not merely something that will stop indus- 
trial warfare and economic loss, but to understand and remedy 
the underlying conditions that result in injustice so that our 
changes may be really constructive. Industrial warfare will 
cease when the grievances of, the wrongs and injustice to the 
toilers no longer exist. Then the worker shall still remain a 
free man, retain his weapon of defense, cumbersome though it 
be. 

"The crucial boundary line, the border between industry and 
democracy," does indeed need more light, more fair, open in- 
vestigation and discussion, not the compulsory awards and de- 
cisions that would result from substituting Government regula- 
tion, control and enforcement for voluntary action concerning 
personal relations on the part of free citizens. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i6i 

How the principle operates in practice, gives a line on its 
actual value, and reveals whether the results promised are se- 
cured, — that is: Are there no strikes? Is industrial progress 
uninterrupted? Has the industrial problem been solved and are 
the interests of labor and capital co-ordinated so that an era of 
good feeling and industrial peace is maintained? Have social 
justice and democracy been realized? Can law prevent strikes? 
Can compulsory arbitration affect industrial changes that will 
result in setting up machinery that will insure the employes a 
fair share of the product of their toil? The most extensive 
laboratories for experimentation in these questions are in 
Australasia, Canada and British South Africa. 

For the first twelve years after the adoption of compulsory 
arbitration in Australasia its advocates had many reasons for 
satisfaction. The grievances and the wrongs of the men were 
so obvious that no court could refuse them awards, so the 
workers were satisfied. As the adoption of the law coincided 
with the period of prosperity the employers did not seriously 
object to increased wages. 

The high tariff wall gave the employers additional protec- 
tion. Their profits were further insured by the tendency 
towards standardization of production costs. Australia and 
New Zealand were usually spoken of as a working man's para- 
dise, the land of no strikes. 

Beginning with 1901 dissatisfaction developed among the 
workers. This culminated in a long series of strikes beginning 
in 1906, when a strike occurred on the tramways in Auckland ; 
in 1907 there was a large strike among the slaughtermen; in 
1908 the coal miners went out. The same year, the motormen 
and conductors in Auckland struck and the bakers of Welling- 
ton. The labor report for New Zealand for 1908 showed 
twenty-three strikes affecting 2,389 men, and since then strikes 
have increased in number and in scope. 

In February, 1907, the slaughterers demanded an increase 
in wages. The packers refused to grant this and referred the 
question to the arbitration court. Knowing that the court would 
consume the most valuable time of the season in reaching a 
decision, which in the end would probably be unfavorable, the 
men struck illegally. The four principal centers of the packing 
business were tied up. This desperate situation forced the em- 
ployers to grant the increase. The court was in a dilemma for 
"the law must be upheld." They arrested the slaughterers and 



i62 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

fined them $25 each. It was a long and tedious process. Men 
were numerous and hard to identify. Those brought in were 
searched but the $25 were not forthcoming. The wheels of 
justice ground slowly; when summer was ended, many unfined 
slaughterers had vanished. The law had been defied with im- 
punity; it was important to prevent the strike and could not 
enforce the penalty for striking. 

The necessity of enforcing the law prompted the Govern- 
ment to increase the penalties for its violation. In the future 
any one who struck while a case was pending might be fined 
and in lieu of the fine his goods confiscated or the man himself 
imprisoned. Any labor union ordering a strike or permitting 
its members to strike, must pay a fine. Then, lest the unions 
evade the law by withdrawing their registration, the fine for 
striking was extended to all trades supplying a utility or neces- 
sity, whether the trades were organized or not. 

Strikes among the slaughtermen have been especially numer- 
ous in New Zealand, and for that reason are counted separately 
in the labor reports. In the year igoS-igog, penalties were in- 
flicted on workmen in 266 cases ; the fines aggregating $6,650, of 
which, at the end of six months, 585^ percent remained unpaid. 

In 1908, after having presented their grievances again and 
again, and receiving no answer except the dismissal of the men 
making the complaints, the miners struck. Preparatory to action 
they divided their union funds among the individual members 
to prevent their being levied on for fines. The emploj-ers in- 
voked the new law. The household goods of the men were 
seized; cook stoves, sewing machines and furniture, including 
articles owned by wives before marriage. The goods must be 
sold at public auction, — but buyers there were none. Finally a 
smiling man offered $1.25 for the whole lot— and got it. Be- 
fore night the miners' goods had been returned to the miners' 
homes. Thus it v.as again plain the law could ])e defied with 
impunity. Enforcement of law depends on popular sentiment 
or concept of justice. 

Mere enactment of legislation is no remedj'. Compulsion 
can not be extended beyond certain limits. 

In West Australia there were many "unlawful" strikes and 
lockouts, but as a rule no attempt to enforce the prohibiting 
clause. The act broke down completely in 1907 in the saw- 
milling industry. Three thousand men were aflFectcd, but there 
was no attempt to enforce the unpalatable award. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 163 

In a mass meeting of the employes of Broken Hill Mine of 
New South Wales on October 18, 1908, the chairman declared : 
"The idea of the new political union is to get an agreement and 
register. The bona fide unions in the Broken Hill Mine would 
have no voice in it. These irresponsibles would have the agree- 
ment made a general law. A strike is our only remedy. Wade's 
act says we shall go to jail if we strike, but no government on 
earth would put the 6,000 men on the line of load in the Bar- 
riers in jail." 

This chairman definitely voices the conviction that has been 
growing among the men, that the compulsory law was a pohtical 
move and that the labor men had never controlled the political 
situation. As a result, the workingmen had come to feel that 
they had no part in the system and that whatever had been 
given them was only given to hold them in line quiescent that 
industry might be uninterrupted, but that freedom of action, the 
birthright of all free men, was yet far from their reach, tied up 
by absolute governmental control. 

The exploited can not cherish good will towards those who 
use governmental control for their hurt. Compulsory arbitra- 
tion did not emanate from the workers, but from the rural 
public which was the controlling political force. They had al- 
ways assumed a savage attitude towards strikers and made fre- 
quent use of the militia against them. The militia used in 
strikes was told to aim to "lay the strikers out." The police of 
Australia have used against strikers a most brutal method, 
found no place else, known as "frog marching." The arrested 
striker is seized by the feet by two policemen, then he is in- 
verted and held with his head so close to the ground that he is 
forced to protect it as best he can by using his hands as feet, 
as he is escorted in that position to the jail. 

Many investigators have tried to determine the value of 
Australian industrial legislation. Some of their opinions are as 
follows : 

Paul Kellogg says : 

But it is not through fear of fine and certainly not through the 
martyrdom of imprisonment that men and women are to be lead to agree 
with their masters. The new act will continue to succeed as a preven- 
tion of strikes in spite of its strike prevention clauses rather than be- 
cause of them. 

Sidney Low in the April Fortnightly concludes : 

It would be rash to affirm that the Australian precedent has been 
sufficiently successful to call for hasty imitations by other and more 
complex communities. 



i64 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Hugh H. Lusk, a most ardent advocate of the system, says: 

However anxiously I have looked around for some way in which the 
system of New Zealand could be applied here (The United States), I 
have been met by difficulties that seemed to me insuperable. 

When the law of 1901 expired, New South Wales enacted the 
law of 1908 which practically abandoned compulsory arbitra- 
tion. Wage boards were provided for the more important 
groups of industry. There was a clause enabling unorganized 
labor to appeal to the Wage Board for relief, but no such ap- 
peal has ever been made. Strikes and lockouts were made illegal 
under certain conditions only. Though a penal clause of the 
law was strengthened, it has not prevented large bodies of men 
from striking. 

In 1902, 12,000 coal miners went on strike; 1,000 men were 
idle in other industries as a result. Then in December Parlia- 
ment passed a coercive act giving the police power to break up 
any meeting for strike purposes, making the procedure more 
effective and increasing the severity of the penalties. In De- 
cember, 1910, the government secured the conviction of the 
president of the Colliers Employes' Association, sentencing him 
to one year at hard labor in prison. Three other leaders were 
given sentences of eight months, and others shorter terms. 

A short time ago a published interview with J. S. Badger, an 
American who has been living in Brisbane for sixteen years, in- 
dicated that compulsory arbitration had not resulted in the kind 
of feeling between employers and employes necessary to indus- 
trial peace, but rather alienation was increasing. He said : 

The question of getting labor and dealing with it, is a very serious 
one in Australia. The country has, perhaps, led in labor legislation, and 
all disputes between employers and employes are subject to arbitration. 
There is a Federal Arbitration Board, and in each State there are arbi- 
tration courts, or wage boards for each separate industry. These last 
have an equal membership of employers and employes, with an inde- 
pendent chairman, and they settle all details about maximum hours and 
minimum wages. Their decisions, when approved by a minister, and 
gazetted, have the force of laws, and severe penalties arc provided for 
their infraction. These laws are enforced rigidly against the employer, 
but it has been found very difficult to enforce them against the em- 
ployes. The whole history of this legislation has shown that you can 
readily get an employer, and fine him, or worse, but if a large number 
of employes are dissatisfied, and decide to stop work, there is no way of 
making them take up their tools again. If you haul them up, they snap 
their fingers. If 10,000 men decide they won't work, it would be a little 
more than the government could do to lock up the whole lot or at- 
tempt to fine them. 

It will be remembered that in Brisbane, the "Country with- 
out Strikes," of which the late Henry D. Lloyd wrote, a general 
strike, completely paralyzed all industry and commerce last 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 165 

spring. The causes of the strike were the refusal of the man- 
agement to grant permission to street railway employes to wear 
the metal badge of their union while at work, and the long delay 
in bringing the matter before the Arbitration Court. When 
finally the men did win a favorable decision from the Arbitra- 
tion Court, the employers appealed the case to the High Court. 

Compulsory arbitration can not guarantee industrial peace. 
If arbitration is followed by more harmonious conditions, it 
must be arbitration sanctioned by the employes; that is to say, 
voluntary arbitration. Where there has been organization of 
the workers, voluntary arbitration has become the prevailing 
custom in American industry. Why should we change to a 
method that has not secured as satisfactory results, where tried? 

In the light of such experience with compulsory arbitration 
organized labor is justified in objecting to having any such leg- 
islation foisted upon it under the pretence and euphonious name 
of peace. Labor seeks justice, and peace will naturally follow, — 
peace is a result, not a casual element. Labor deprecates all 
such suggestions introduced in the name of social welfare, but 
really serving as an entering wedge whereby the people may be 
beguiled into adopting a regulation prejudicial to the best inter- 
ests of a great proportion of the population — the workers. Labor 
will oppose compulsory arbitration under any guise. 



RAILROAD CONTROL' 

These arbitration boards, whether in Australia, or in New 
Zealand, or where not, all operate upon the same general prin- 
ciple; that is, a board of conciliation or arbitration is selected 
composed of representatives from both sides. In this bill it is 
called the board of wages and working conditions. The findings 
of this board go to some real tribunal named by the govern- 
ment, whose determination has the force and effect of law. 

It is not necessary to examine the precedents. A look into 
the working of the thing will convince any careful analyst of its 
inevitable result. Here are the representatives of the craft 
and the representatives of the employer endeavoring to reach a 
satisfactory wage. As long as the traffic will bear it, whether it 
has been among railroads or in private industrial institutions, 

1 Speech of Hon. A. Owsley Stanley, of Kentucky, in the Senate of 
the United States, Monday, December 15, and Tuesday, December 16, 1919. 



i66 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the result has been to raise the wage. It does not matter 
whether men are mining coal or spinning cotton or operating a 
railroad, as a rule they are always willing to stand a raise in 
wages, provided that raise shall apply to all who are engaged 
in the industry in the country, and let the ultimate consumer 
absorb it. 

In addition to that, as I called to the attention of the Senate 
yesterday, this is compulsory arbitration. The man is com- 
manded to work, not because the conditions are suitable or the 
compensation satisfactory, but because the law commands it, 
and you can not in fairness compel a man to work without af- 
fording him a compensatory wage. For that reason a minimum 
wage has already accompanied a compulsorj' arbitrament of the 
question. 

In a report made by the Board of wages and working condi- 
tions under conciHation and arbitration acts of Australia and 
New Zealand, Mr. Aves to the Right Hon. H. J. Gladstone, in 
1908, after a thorough review of this system in both countries, 
he says : 

But the real conditions of industry are very far from being deter- 
mined simply by the wages that have been paid, and if laid bare I think 
the attendant conditions, when coupled with the increasing inefficiency, 
lack of interest in work, and trade-union intervention, would be found to 
be a greater cause of discontent and dissatisfaction among employees 
than the nominal wages fixed. 

Another distinguished author has said: 

I am quite sure that the arbitration system has resulted in the loss 
of industrial efficiency far greater than ever resulted from strikes. 

A thorough and exhaustive report on the working of compul- 
sory and conciliatory and arbitration laws was made by the 
royal commission, a commission that visited all the countries in 
which these boards were in operation, and made anything but 
an unfavorable report. I call the attention of the Senate, how- 
ever, to this pertinent paragraph, the thing that seems to have 
been overlooked by those who are studj'ing simply its effect 
upon the employer and the employee and overlooking the rights 
and interest of the general public. 

They said: 

The efifect of the working of the act — 

As far as the general public is concerned, and that is the 

thing in which we are principally interested here — 

has been undoubtedly to make the public to pay generally more for the 
products of an industry which has been regulated by a board or the 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 167 

court, when the tariff is high enoug-h or other conditions occur to prevent 
foreign competition. I have already pointed out that, in the boot trade, 
the conditions imposed are such that outside producers are able to 
leap the tariffs fence, and a Member of the House of Representatives said 
to me: "If the present duties are done away with the act may as well 
be repealed as far as raising wages in the manufacturing industries is 
concerned." The coal-mine owners agreed upon an advance in price 
when the cost of hewing was raised, and the flour millers acted similarly. 
Building has become more expensive, and in _ this trade the contractors 
at first made very little opposition to the claims for advance in wages, 
secure as they considered themselves in the ability to pass on the extra 
cost of construction to those who required their services. Now, how- 
ever — 

And this should give us pause at this time — 

they are of opinion that the tendency of the awards is likely to narrow 
the scope of their business, and they are making efforts to oppose more 
effectually the demands of the men. Cost of living, particularly rent, 
is becoming dearer, I was informed. 

The inevitable result of allowing the employer and the em- 
ployee to agree on the wage, and then authorizing the govern- 
ment to give that agreement the force and effect of law, the 
pubHc unconsidered and unrepresented, is to arbitrarily raise 
wages. Australia and New Zealand abandoned every semblance 
of free trade, closed their ports, when they went to this per- 
nicious policy, and kited wages so high that they were only 
stopped when the cost of living became acute. 

Are we prepared at this time to adopt a policy whose friends 
admit results in inefficiency among the laborers and increased 
cost of the product of labor? 

In my opinion the fear that haunts the minds of members of 
the Senate and of members of the comm.ittee and has induced 
them to adopt this dangerous expedient, the fear that there will 
be a universal dislocation of transportation business in the 
United States, a universal paralysis of the whole movement of 
commerce from ocean to ocean, is unwarranted. It never oc- 
curred before and we have no reason to apprehend that it will 
occur in the future. 

A strike, especially among the employees of comm.on car- 
riers, among engineers and firemen and conductors, is a dernier 
resort to which they never come except after long negotiations 
and a failure to reach any kind of agreement. These strikes, 
these disagreements, are the result of the failure of the em- 
ployees to concur or to agree in some arrangement with their 
employer. Is it possible that when j-ou have turned the roads 
back to not less than 20 nor more than 35 separate and distinct 
corporations, that each one and all of the corporations will have 
the same trouble at the same time? If they are local, if the 



i68 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

walkout occurs upon one road and not upon the other, then you 
are not face to face with the evil and need no new legislation to 
handle it, and there is no reason to apprehend that it will be 
universal in the future any more than it has been in the past. 

Now, let us suppose the thing should occur. Let us suppose 
that 2,000,000 men should at the same time and by common 
agreement all quit their work at the stroke of the clock. Re- 
member the bill, as the chairman of the committee has said, is 
not like the injunction at Indianapolis. It is not directed against 
a half a dozen labor leaders. It applies to all, says the chair- 
man, and that is true. It is a fundamental principle of the law 
of conspiracy that where a number of men agree to do an illegal 
thing it does not matter about the extent to which each partici- 
pates in the enterprise, they are all equally guilty. 

If 100 men agree to commit a robbery and ninety-five out of 
the 100 act as mere pickets, all are guilty. The same applies 
here. If they all agree to walk out you have 2,000,000 men who 
have violated an act of Congress. What are you going to do 
with them — put them all in jail? In 1910 the prisons of the 
United States accommodated a little over 111,000 men. You 
would have to put twenty men in each cell, if you had deputy 
marshals enough and soldiers enough and civil ofificers enough 
to apprehend and incarcerate 2,000,000 men. When j'ou did, 
when the last railroader was in prison, who would run your 
railroads? If you could fo and find new men to run the roads 
after imprisoning these men, would it not be easier to find them 
before you imprison them? 

You know and I know and the employees upon the railroads 
know that the law can not in the nature of things be enforced. 
The only reason for passing it is the frail hope that it will 
never have to be executed. 

That it will never be violated. The laws of the Supreme 
Judge, from whose decrees there is no appeal and from whose 
punishment and vengeance there is no escape, are violated, the 
children of Israel violated them before the thunders of His 
wrath had ceased to reverberate about Sinai's flaming top. No 
law has ever been written yet by God or man that has not been 
violated, and yet we are told that while we know this act is im- 
potent, while we know it can not be enforced, we believe the 
moral effect, the sanction of it, will be such that the men will 
obey it, although they have told you that they will not. 

The act not only never prevented a strike and never will, but 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 169 

the history of it in every country that has ever tried it shows 
that it is the most provocative thing of strikes and dislocations 
and revolts among labor that has ever been conceived by the 
wit of man. I know of nothing more interesting than the 
funeral orations which were delivered over the act in the New 
Zealand Parliament after ten years of trial and the admission 
of utter failure, of failure so ludicrous and pathetic as to 
amount to a legislative and judicial fiasco and a farce. 

In discussing the failure of an act which the chairman of 
the committee says in all respect is like this, that in every es- 
sential resembles it, this act is a twin of the dead New Zealand 
experience. Said Mr. Rigg, a member of the Australian Parlia- 
ment, on July I, 1908: 

I have said it was a mistake to suppose that strikes could be prevented 
by coercive legislation; yet this is what we attempted (p. 48). Now, 
sir, I have already said that we committed a great error when we made 
that change. What has been the result? We have found that we have 
put a law on the statute book that we have been unable to enforce, and 
no one seems capable of suggesting any effective and proper means of 
enforcing it. Let me remind the honorable gentlemen that threats of 
imprisonment were used to compel the payment of fines under the act; 
that, in fact, writs of attachment were issued against strikers which 
entailed imprisonment if they had not been respected. Again, we know 
that where there is an extensive strike, and especially where flie strikers 
are assisted and mutually supported by other unions, it is impossible to 
enforce the law by imprisonment — quite impossible. Without consider- 
ing the obvious difficulty of accommodating as prisoners a very large 
number of our fellow citizens, to enforce it would be to deprive em- 
ployers during the term of imprisonment of the very labor they can not 
do without and thus to prolong all the evils that arise from the strike 
itself. 

This brings me to the next method of enforcing the law, which is by 
fine, and I ask, is it possible to recover the fine? I say no. 

This man is speaking from ten years' experience with the 

operation of the act under his own eyes. 

We have had recently, first, a union distributing the funds in order 
that they might not be attached, and then we have had the case where 
the goods of the strikers have been distrained, a number of articles 
seized, and, when put up to auction, bought in for 12s. 6d. by an inter- 
ested party and returned to the owners. Now we are adopting another 
method, which is the _ attachment of wages over and above the sum of 
£2 a week. Now, without expressing any opinion as to the legality of 
such a course, let me ask: Supposing the attachment of wages results in 
the men refusing to work any longer, how are you going to enforce the 
payment of the fine? Have you not then reproduced the conditions that 
existed during the strike? The strikers who have been fined say, "So 
long as our wages are attached by the court we will not work," and that 
means of recovering the fine is destroyed. 

I call the attention of the Senate to another brief and graphic 

description of the expiring agonies of the same act in the first 

country that ever tried it. I quote here from the Federationist : 

For the first twelve years after the adoption of compulsory arbitration 
in Australasia its advocates had many reasons for satisfaction. The 
grievances and the wrongs of the men were so obvious that no court 



170 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

could refuse them awards, so the workers were satisfied. As the adop- 
tion of the law coincided with the period of prosperity the employers 
did not seriously object to increased wages. 

As long as you agree to boost wages it works. Have you 
any need of law on a rising scale? Are wages rising fast 
enough in this country to suit you, or do you want to put this 
thing in under them and give them another shove upward? 
The high tariff wall- 
That is another thing that is necessary as well as the mini- 
mum wage scale. You can not operate this proposition without 
excluding labor, that is governed by the law of supply and de- 
mand, and not by boards and commissions. Wages should rise 
according to a natural demand and not according to the 
maneuvers of boards and commissions, to the detriment of the 
general public. 

Beginning with 190 1, however, dissatisfaction developed among the 
workers. This culminated in a long series of strikes, beginning in 1906. 
when a strike occurred on the tramways in Auckland. In 1907 there 
was a large strike among the slaughtermen. In 1908 the coal miners 
went out — 

All in the teeth of this law. 

The same year the motormen and the conductors in Auckland struck, 
and the bakers of Wellington. The labor report for New Zealand for 
1908 showed 23 strikes, affecting 2,389 men, and since then strikes have 
increased in number and in scope. 

In February, 1907, the slaughterers demanded an increase in wages 
The packers refused to grant this and referred the question to the arbi- 
tration court. Knowing that the court would consume the most valu- 
able time of the season in reaching a decision, which in the end would 
probably be unfavorable, the men struck illegally. The four principal 
centers of the packing business were tied up. This desperate situation 
forced the employers to grant the increase. The court was in a dilemma, 
for "the law must be upheld." They arrested the slnughtercrs and fined 
them $25 each. It was a long and tedious process. Men were numeroui 
and hard to identify. Those brought in were searched, but the $25 was 
not forthcoming. The wheels of justice ground slowly; when summer 
was ended many unfined slaughterers had vanished. The law had been 
defied with impunity; it was impotent to prevent the strike and could 
not enforce the penalty for striking. 

The necessity of enforcing the law prompted the Government to in- 
crease the penalties for its violation. In the future anyone who struck 
while a case was pending might be fined, and in lieu of the fine his 
goods confiscated or the man himself imprisoned. Any labor union or- 
dering a strike, or permitting its members to strike must pay a fine. 
Then, lest the unions evade the law by withdrawing their registration, 
the fine for striking was extended to all trades supplying a utility or neces- 
sity whether the trades were organized or not. 

Strikes among the slaughtermen have been especially numerous in 
New Zealand, and for that reason are counted separately in the labor 
reports. In the year 1908-9 penalties were inflicted on workmen in 266 
cases, the fines aggregating $6,650, of which, at the end of six months, 
58% per cent, remained unpaid. 

In 1908, after having presented their grievances again and again and 
receiving no answer except the dismissal of the men making the com- 
plaints, miners struck. Preparatory to action they divided their union 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 171 

funds among the individual members to prevent their being levied on 
for fines. The employers invoked the new law. The household goods 
of the men were seized — cook stoves, sewing machines, and furniture, 
including articles owned by wives before marriage. The goods must be 
sold at public auction, but buyers there were none. Finally a smiling 
man offered $1.25 for the whole lot, and got it. Before night the miners 
goods had been returned to the miners' homes. Thus it was again 
plain the law could be defied with impunity. Enforcement of law de- 
pends on popular sentiment or concept of justice. 

Mere enactment of legislation is no remedy. Compulsion can not be 
extended beyond certain limits. 

The law referred to, it will be understood, was perfectly fair ; 
that is, it was ambidextrous; it applied to both sides. The law 
provided heavy pains and penalties against the employer who 
did not raise wages on demand. The boot and shoe makers of 
New Zealand refused to obey an award of the commission; at 
least they closed their shops and boots and shoes were imported. 
Then the workmen turned on the law. 

J. Stephen Jeans, late secretary of the Iron and Steel Insti- 
tute, in a comprehensive review of the whole question, has this 
to say about compulsory arbitration: 

Practically, however, all experience and precedents up to the present 
time are dead against compulsion in any form. You cannot very well 
compel a man to agree to submit to reference whether he shall be re- 
quired to work for a certain employer for a certain wage at a certain 
time. This must be left entirely to the man's own choice. Nor can you 
deal differently with a body of men, however numerous, so long as they 
have broken no laws and rendered themselves amenable to no penalties. 
Workmen must be continued' in the enjoyment of the right to dispose of 
their labor at whatsoever price they like, and this being so they can not 
be compelled to arbitrate as to what the price of that labor shall be or 
as to any othef general condition affecting its value and duration. 

In my humble opinion, you are attempting to incorporate 
into this act a foolish and indefensible expedient highly 
offensive to labor, utterly useless to capital, and eminently 
calculated to produce the very evils it is designed to correct. 
Such legislation has often produced strikes by the wholesale. 
It has never settled one, it has never prevented one, and it 
never will. 

Prof. John R. Commons, of the University of Wisconsin, 
and Prof. John B. Andrews, authorities of national repute, 
have written an exhaustive work upon this subject, entitled 
"Principles of Labor Legislation." With no political bias, 
without the question being agitated, speaking not as advo- 
cates but friendly to many provisions of the law, they re- 
view with pertinent comments the history of compulsory 
arbitration in Australia. They say: 

• • • Turn now to the turbulent history of New South Wales. 
* * • This one State furnishes more than half of the days lost by 



172 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

strikes in all of Australia. ♦ • » After a futile voluntary arbitra- 
tion law of 1892, New South Wales passed its first compulsory law in 
1901. • » * The act expired in 1908. The single court had not 
disposed of the cases brought before it with sufficient rapidity. The anti- 
labor ministry in power at that time adopted a comprehensive system of 
wage boards modeled after the Victorian system, whose determinations 
were subject to appeal to a special court of arbitration — 

The exact provision which is contained in this proposed 

legislation — 

All strikes were declared illegal. A system of fines was adopted to reach 
the union funds. Strikes, almost of the character of rebellion, followed 
and the next year the same ministry rushed through a bill applicable to 
strikes in certain necessary industries, like coal mining. These provided 
a penalty of not exceeding 12 months' imprisonment for instigating strikes, 
and the same length of time for mere participation in a strike meeting — 

What was the eflfect ot that on the coal-mining industry? 

Immediately there followed a strike of all the coal miners in New 
South Wales— 

They accepted the challenge instantlj' — 

The situation became intolerable, and the Labor Party came back to 
power. A new act was passed in 1912. The severe penalties were with- 
drawn, and special conciliation boards were created for mine workers. 

But neither under antilabor ministries nor under the present labor 
ministry is New South Wales industrially quiet. Frantic assertion of 
authority has been followed by flabbiness in the administration of the 
law. This has resulted in a series of headless strikes. The officials of 
the union, who might be prosecuted, make a show of dissuading the 
men — 

Have we not had a similar experience recently in Indi- 
ana? — 

and the men strike with neither political nor economic consequences, 
as the Government will not prosecute the rank and file, and the em- 
ployer is bound by the awards. Practically the compulsory arbitration 
system of New South Wales has become an imperfect wage-board system. 

The act of New South Wales was repealed. A provision 
was placed in the law of 1912 mildly reprobating strikes and 
in certain instances punishing them as a misdemeanor, and 
again the laborers struck. 

The mild act of 1912 was not anything like as obnoxious 
as the previous one. Under it a strike or lockout was re- 
garded not as criminal but rather as an extravagant ex- 
pedient, liable to penalization extending to a charge on any 
moneys then or thereafter due to the person ordered to pay 
such penalty. The court was also authorized to grant a writ 
of injunction to restrain any person from continuing to insti- 
gate or to aid in a lockout or strike, the maximum penalty 
being imprisonment for six months. 

In protest against and in defiance of this act, in a country 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I73 

containing less than 1,000,000 adult males, there followed in 
one year 289 dislocations, involving 144,704 men, and en- 
tailing the appalling loss of 2,861,595 working days, with the 
result that the objectionable provision was repealed in the 
following year by an amendment establishing the principle 
that strikes and lockouts, with certain exceptions, were ex- 
pressly recognized as lawful. 

Every country that has ever attempted to enact such a law , 
as we are now attempting to enact has precipitated strikes, \ 
with the result that the law has been repealed and the right \ 
of laborers to quit the employment and personal service of J 
any man or corporation Avithout let or hindrance has been 
expressly recognized. Canada has done so; New Zealand 
has done so; New South Wales has done so; England has 
done so; and yet, in the teeth of these multitudinous failures 
everywhere in the civilized world wherever the attempt 
has been made, conservative men at this crucial time, at this 
perilous time, are endeavoring to revive this indefensible ex- 
periment. 

Great Britain and Canada alike, admitting the impotency 
and folly of such provisions as this, have incorporated into 
the law express provisions recognizing the right of men to 
quit and guaranteeing immunity to employees who in- 
dividually or collectively protest against objectionable work- 
ing conditions by a refusal to longer endure them. 

After more than ten centuries of experience with every 
character of legislation penalizing combinations among em- 
ployees or any character of interference in the relations of 
master and servant, employer and employee alike, in Great 
Britain have joined in the utter repudiation of the whole 
scheme of compulsory arbitration. 

As I said on yesterday, we have had for 2,000 years ex- 
perience with legislation similar to this. Senators will re- 
member from the reading of Blackstone that it was a fixed 
principle of English law for five centuries that any combina- 
tion among workmen for the purpose of extorting an in- 
creased wage or otherwise inconveniencing an employer was 
illegal; that any interference between a man and master was 
a misdemeanor or worse. 

Very recently this whole question has been subjected to 



174 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the most exhaustive inquiry by the Whitley Commission. 
In commenting upon the report of this commission, Mr. 
Joseph Horton, British correspondent to the Iron Trade Re- 
view, of August I, 1918 thus summarizes the result of the 
findings of this commission. 

These are not the protests of labor; these are the cold 
and deliberate judgments of capitalists and of employers of 
workmen. I quote from the Iron Trade Review of August 
I, 1918: 

Should employers and employees be compelled to submit their dis- 
agreements to arbitration? Should employees be compelled to remain at 
work while disagreements are being arbitrated? These were among the 
big questions studied by the commission appointed to investigate indus- 
trial unrest in Great Britain. In the latest report of the commission 
both questions are answered in the negative. The Whitley investiga- 
tion commission, as the board is called, round that neither employer nor 
employee favored compulsory arbitration. 

In this the second article written by the Iron Trade Review's British 
correspondent dealing with the British labor problem, the commission's 
reasons for its findings_ are set forth. It is pointcd_ out that the main- 
stay of British industrial peace is the frank discussion of problems be- 
tween employers and employees, and voluntary arbitration in all cases 
where such discussion fails to bring about the desired results. 

The commission is strong in its advocacy of industrial councils in the 
various industries as a reliable means of arriving at a satisfactory under- 
standing. The success of the voluntary arbitration plan has been founded 
on the confidence of both employers and employees in their arbitrators. 

If it is not possible to enforce such an act in little islands, 
in thinly populated countries, how will it be possible to 
enforce such an act in this great country? The male adult 
population of New South Wales and of New Zealand does 
not equal the number of men now in the service of our rail- 
roads. There are not 600,000 adult, able-bodied workmen in 
either New South Wales or in New Zealand. There are more 
men in the employ of the common carirers of the United 
States than there are men, women, and children in eitlier 
one of these countries; and yet these little, thinly populated 
countries could not enforce such an act on account of the 
number of men it aflfected. What are you going to do with 
2,000,000 of men? 

Mr. President, I have followed this committee and its 
great work with interest and with admiration. Its members 
have brought learning, experience, patience, and courage to 
the solving of an immense problem and to the performance 
of a titanic task. You have revolutionized a great industry 
in America, You have taken these roads from the control 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I7S 

of the state governments and placed them under federal 
control. You have supervised and controlled the issuance 
of their securities, the payment of their rates, the organiza- 
tion of the corporations. 

If we must make this attempt, let it be done in another 
bill and at another time. This all-important and vital legis- 
lation should not be shackled, should not be endangered by 
this provision, requested neither by master nor by servant, 
and sternly, and I think wisely, opposed by millions of men 
directly affected by it. This bill contains many things which 
are wise and good and more which are untried and new. 

We are about to reorganize and revolutionize a system of 
transportation which equals in extent and value the mileage 
of all other railroads on the globe; we have provided for 
the reorganization of the corporations which have hitherto 
controlled and operated these systems; we have transferred 
them from the jurisdictions of the state to the federal gov- 
ernment; we have regulated their earnings and the issue of 
their securities. The industrial peace and prosperity of this 
Republic rests in great measure upon the success and the 
great work this committee has attempted and to which it 
has given earnest thought and indefatigable attention and 
to which it has brought the talents and the experience of 
men who have given years of their lives to an understanding 
of this titanic problem. To make the reorganization of rail- 
roads and their return to private ownership a success you 
need not only the cooperation of presidents of banks and 
railroads, of financiers and traffic managers, you need the 
cordial, capable, enthusiastic cooperation of the 2,000,000 
men who have operated this vast machine with such signal 
energy and efficiency. Were this some new industrial pan- 
acea, not branded all over with demonstrated failure wher- 
ever tried, it would still be objectionable at this time. 
Owners and operatives alike have problems enough to solve, 
and in their solution we need the cordial and capable co- 
operation of master and of man. It is not necessary, it is 
not wise, to endanger the success of the whole scheme by 
provoking the sullen opposition of those upon whom the ex- 
peditious and efficient movement of the commerce of Amer- 
ica admittedly depends. 



176 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

INDUSTRIAL PEACE BY LAW— THE KANSAS 
WAY' 

Governor Allen of Kansas has been East on a speaking 
trip. He appeared before the legislatures of New Jersey and 
New York, addressed the Boston Chamber of Commerce, 
and at the Waldorf Astoria in New York spoke before five 
hundred diners under the auspices of the League for Indus- 
trial Rights, formerly known as the American Anti-Boycott 
Association. And the burden of his message was every- 
where the same. It was something like this: We have found 
the way to industrial justice and hence to industrial peace 
in Kansas. We will establish in Kansas a mecca of well 
ordered, contented, just relationships. Unless you pass 
similar legislation in your states your industries will move 
to Kansas where operators can carry on their business in 
an atmosphere of well-regulated justice. 

Everywhere audiences have listened to Governor Allen 
with deep interest. They have been impressed. Newspapers 
have reported that we must have this Kansas law. Public 
speakers have indorsed it. Legislators have introduced bills 
patterned after the Kansas model. Three of these are now 
pending in the legislature of New York. There is one in 
New Jersey. There is a clamor for such legislation in other 
states. 

Never before in the history of the United States has 
there been so widespread a movement of this sort. There 
are no less than six proposals before the constitutional con- 
vention in Illinois involving a limitation on the right to 
strike or some form of compulsory arbitration. A constitu- 
tional ainendmcnt is proposed in Massachusetts, giving the 
legislature "the right to pass laws restricting the right of 
individuals to strike." There is a bill pending in Massachu- 
setts for compulsory arbitration of street railway disputes, 
and there is one in New York covering food, fuel and trans- 
portation, in addition to the three patterned after the law 
of Kansas. 

The Kansas law is unique. It is the first and so far 
the only law in any American stale compelling employes 

*John A. Fitch. Survey. 44:7-8-F48. April 3, 1920. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 177 

and employers to submit their diflferences to a tribunal for 
adjudication. It is the only law ever passed in America re- 
quiring the manager of an industry to get permission from 
anybody before he can close his plant. In Kansas, if his 
industry is "affected with a public interest" he has to give 
reasons for any desire he may have to suspend operations, 
and the court will examine those reasons.- If it finds them 
"meritorious" it will let him off. Otherwise he will have to 
continue to run his shop or have it taken away from him. 

It would be about the same way with the workers if 
they had a similar right. They haven't. They can't show 
that their desire to quit is meritorious. It is just plain down- 
right illegal to strike, whatever the reason. And the pen- 
alty for violation of the law is $1,000 fine or one year in jail 
or both, if the offender is a "person." If he is an officer of 
a corporation or of a union the penalty is $S,ooo fine, or two 
years in jail or both. 

It should be made clear that this law does not appjy to 
all industries. It applies to industries which are "affected 
with a public interest." These industries are declared to be 
the manufacture or preparation of food, the manufacture of 
clothing, the mining or production of fuel, the transportation 
of these commodities, and all public utilities. To these in- 
dustries there are added, in the Knight bill in New York 
the manufacture, production or handling of iron and wood 
products intended to be used in buildings or by public util- 
ities. 

The law creates a "court of industrial relations," com- 
posed of three "judges" appointed by the governor to serve 
a term of three years. The court may intervene in any in- 
dustrial controversy, either on its own initiative, at the re- 
quest of either party to the dispute, or on the complaint of 
ten citizens or of the attorney general of the state. It may 
investigate the controversy, making a temporary award at 
the beginning and a final award when the investigation is 
completed. The award so far as wages are concerned is to 
be retroactive to the date on which the investigation was 
begun. If wages are increased in the final award the em- 
ployes are entitled to back pay. If wages are reduced, the 
employer is entitled to recover the excess paid in wages 
since the beginning of the investigation. 



178 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

The investigations are to be conducted in accordance 
with the rules of evidence as recognized by the supreme 
court of the state. 

There are certain principles laid down as guide to the 
court, and presumably for the protection of the parties in- 
volved. According to Section 9 labor is entitled to a "fair" 
v/age and capital to a "fair return." This may or may not 
be modified by Section 8, which stipulates that while all 
conditions must be "just and reasonable," they must be such 
as to enable the industries in question "to continue with rea- 
sonable efficiency to produce or transport their products or 
continue their operations and thus to promote the general 
welfare." Either party may appeal any decision to the su- 
preme court. 

No worker may be discharged on account of any testi- 
mony he has given before the court, and no employer is to 
be subject to the boycott or any other discrimination on 
account of any act performed in accordance with the terms 
of the law. 

Section 14 of the law has some very peculiar provisions. 
It sets forth that any union that will incorporate shall be 
recognized by the court of industrial relations as a "legal 
entity," and may appear before the court "through and by 
its proper officers." Unions, whether incorporated or not, 
have the right to bargain collectively, but if the individual 
members of an unincorporated union wish to avail them- 
selves of this right, they must, each one of them, designate 
in writing some person, officer of the union or otherwise, as 
their spokesman. 

This section is open to the inference that an unincorpor- 
ated union would not have a right to appear before the 
court. It also raises the question of the right of such a 
union to engage in collective bargaining if every member 
did not sign a paper designating a spokesman. However, 
it appears from Section 9 that the right of collective bar- 
gaining may after all be an unimportant right. The court 
of industrial relations has final authority over agreements 
independently made, and may modify them if it doe.s not find 
them "fair, just and reasonable." 

One hesitates to criticise a project so joyously entered 
upon as this Kansas enterprise has been, or one in which 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i79 

there is so much confident trust, with respect to its power 
to remedy evil. But it is being offered as a cure for indus- 
trial ills. Communities a thousand miles away from Kan- 
sas, and with more at stake, are being told, with all the 
assurance of six weeks' experience, that by such means not 
only industrial quiet, but industrial justice is to be had. The 
hazards are too great not to examine the molars of this 
particular gift horse. 

The first noteworthy fact is that there are no particular 
qualifications mentioned in the law that the judges of the 
court of industrial relations must possess. That is a detail, 
but it is a rather important detail. Under one governor the 
judges might all be employers, under another they might 
be labor leaders, and under a third, men wholly ignorant 
of industry or its problems. 

Limited as the court is by rules of evidence, a common 
sense inquiry seems to be impossible. Under the rules of 
evidence a witness is not permitted to give hearsay testi- 
mony. While this is an important restriction for the pro- 
tection of a man accused of crime, it will not assist, in un- 
derstanding the details of a complicated industrial situation. 
It is very difficult to see how the rules of evidence could 
be applied to such an investigation as the court must carry 
on, but if they were so applied it is obvious that the investi- 
gation would be restricted, legalistic and largely futile. 

The law sets no time within which the court is to make 
its finding, nor is the period within which the award is to 
run limited. The only v.;ay, therefore, by which a revision 
of the award within a reasonable length of time could be 
forced would apparently be through the staging of a new 
controversy in order that the court might again be brought 
into the situation and be obliged to make a new award. The 
law, therefore, may serve to make inevitable that very unrest 
that it is designed to cure. 

The section requiring an award to be retroactive is ab- 
surd and impracticable so far as it relates to the employes 
paying back to their employer the excess of wages received 
in the case of an award depressing their wages. There is 
no likelihood that the previous wage paid v/ould be in gen- 
eral high enough to allow the accumulation of the excess 
either in the form of savings or of property. In other words, 



i8o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the money would have been spent. The collection of these 
sums by the employer would be highly improbable. How- 
ever, the existence of this provision in the law will prob- 
ably be the source of a great deal of trouble. It could un- 
doubtedly be used in the form of persecution, whether its 
use for any other purpose would be impracticable or not. 

The protection the bill seems to throw about the work- 
ers is of very doubtful value. In asserting that the wage 
must be just and reasonable the bill does no more than re- 
iterate what the most reactionary member of the community 
would admit. There are no standards as a basis for deter- 
mining justice and reasonableness in the matter of wages. 
It is certain that the judgment of a court on this question 
would be an extremely conservative judgment. 

There is an assumed protection in the provision that a 
workman cannot be discharged on account of his testimony 
before the court. It is well known that laws prohibiting 
the right to discharge because a man is a member of a union 
have been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of 
the United States. There is no reason to believe that this 
provision would have any better standing in court. But 
even if it did, it is a protection that amounts to very little. 
The important thing is that the right to strike is taken away, 
and the corresponding right of the employer to discharge 
whom he will with this one minor exception is left intact. 
The employer then could undermine an organization by 
discharging its leaders, by discharging every independently 
minded employe and have the full protection of the court 
of industrial relations in so doing. He could by this action 
so intimidate his employes that they would not appeal to 
the court for protection against low wages and long hours, 
nor testify against their employer if someone else made the 
appeal for them. 

These are some of the defects of the Kansas law. To 
point them out, however, is not sufficient. It does not bring 
us to the heart of the matter. The law is at fault not in 
details, but as a whole. Its assumptions are unsound, and 
its purposes run counter to some of the most deeply signi- 
ficant purposes of modern civilization. 

Compulsory arbitration is an attempt to forbid by law 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i8i 

the continuance of a fundamental and, so long as the present 
economic order shall stand, an essential controversy. Di- 
vergent interests exist and will continue to exist, and neither 
courts nor laws can wipe them out any more than Canute 
could command the tides. To forbid a group the right to 
exercise its group strength in the matter of industrial rela- 
tions is to fasten upon industry a species of servitude. The 
right of the individual to quit, which is not taken away by 
the Kansas law, is of small significance if he is not per- 
mitted to quit in such a way as to make his act a matter of 
concern to the industry, and hence to make it a factor in 
the determination of working conditions. He is thereby de- 
nied the right to bring pressure to bear on industry to se- 
cure for the workers in it better conditions of employment. 
In his individual freedom to quit he can get such improved 
conditions only by stumbling on them, if he should be so 
fortunate. He may not, with his fellows, make such condi- 
tions for himself. 

Nor will the court make them for him, in any degree not 
sanctioned by the general conception of the dominant group 
at the time. The court will give him "fairness and justice" 
— as imderstood by the court. The judges will be spokes- 
men for things as they are. They will be appointed to their 
positions by the powers that be. They will represent the 
accepted moralities; they will not be pioneers in the search 
for new conceptions of justice. 

This is a matter of very great importance when you con- 
sider the true nature of the labor movement. Taken as a 
whole it is a part of a profound and fundamental struggle, 
ages old — the struggle upward of the masses of the people. 
There never has been a time in the entire history of that 
struggle that the vanguard of the movement was not chal- 
lenging accepted ethical standards. There never has been 
a time when a court, its personnel made up of representa- 
tive members of the dominant group, would not have ruled 
against these challengers. When the normal status for labor 
was slavery a court of industrial relations, honestly dispens- 
ing justice according to its lights, would have ruled that 
slaves must be so fed and housed as to enable them to 
maintain their strength and their numbers. It would have 



i82 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

frowned upon too severe beatings, but it would have or- 
dered amputation of the ears, and branding, for those slaves 
who tried to stir their fellows to revolt. 

When serfdom was the natural state, the court would 
doubtless have granted many reforms if they did not call 
in question the justice and fairness of the status of the serf. 
It was only one hundred and fourteen years ago that a judge 
in Philadelphia, presiding at a trial of workmen who had 
combined to improve their conditions, instructed the jury 
as follows: "A combination of workmen to raise their wages 
may be considered in a twofold point of view: one is to 
benefit themselves, . . . the other is to injure those who 
do not join the society. The rule of law condemns both." 
The jury found the defendants "guilty of a combination to 
raise wages." 

Slavery, serfdom, conspiracy doctrines — these are, in the 
main, things of the past. When they existed they were the 
expression of the conception of "justice and fairness" of the 
time. Those who led the fight for a different conception 
were enemies of the social order. 

Can anyone say that labor has now arrived at the state 
to which it is to be permanently assigned? There are still 
dissenters as there always have been who propose new 
marches towards a better day. Some of these plans and 
proposals will find expression in new demands on employers. 
Whether they are justified by the facts of any given situa- 
tion or not, is it not reasonably certain that an industrial 
court dispensing justice as it is currently and generally un- 
derstood would find them unjust and unreasonable? And 
thus the court becomes of necessity a barrier to experiments 
in new standards of justice. 

If it is desirable for the state to intervene in the contro- 
versy between employer and employe let it do so by raising 
the level on which that controversy is to take place. Let 
there be a point below which there is to be no argument. 
Thus at once the bitterest forms of the controversy are 
made unnecessary. Above that point economic organization 
should be made freer, rather than less free. Voluntary ar- 
bitration should be encouraged, and the parties to the wage 
bargain should both be so strongly organized as to make 
such arbitration an agency that they may safely use. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 183 

It may not be true in all respects that that government 
is best which governs least, but all history, ancient and mod- 
ern, gives evidence of the folly of attempts to maintain the 
status quo by force of law. 



COMPULSORY ARBITRATION THE NEXT 

BATTLE PRIZE; WHY IT FAILED 

IN NEW ZEALAND^ 

Every little while in our happy land some one has a 
bright, original thought about strikes, like this: 

These strikes are annoying. One day I wanted to go 
down town and all the subway employes were out on strike, 
and I had to hire a taxi or walk. Once one of our maids 
went to the basement door to get the milk in the morning 
and there wasn't any milk. The milk wagon drivers were 
on strike. I plan to go next month to California and I am 
warned that I had better not go. The railroad employes 
may go on strike. The government ought to protect us 
against these troubles. Ah then! Happy thought! Let us 
have a law forbidding strikes. Then we can live in peace. 

There is a great deal of this style of original thinking 
going on at present, and likely to be much more. By a 
narrow margin we managed to escape in the Conference 
Railroad bill the provisions of the venerable Cummins and 
others to make striking a crime, but there is indication enough 
that we have escaped only for a season. If the elections 
this year go the way they ought to go for the supremacy 
of our Better Elements, we shall have anti-strike bills as 
thick as autumn leaves, with every chance that one of them 
will get through. 

That is our admired Congress I am speaking of. Mean- 
time the original thinking group has been busy in the state 
legislatures. Kansas has passed and is trying to enforce a 
law that seeks to eliminate strikes by compulsory arbitra- 
tion. Colorado has passed one that seeks to eliminate them 
by making them impossible to success. State after state is 
preparing to imitate one or the other of these examples. 

1 Charles Edward Russell. Reconstruction. 2:150-2. April, 1930. 



i84 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

In a recent speaking tour through the country the burden of 
the intellectual converse I heard in smoking compartment 
and hotel lobby was the necessity of putting an end to these 
confounded strikes and as none of the authorities that dis- 
cussed the matter had any remedy to suggest but some kind 
of a prohibitory law, I think we are in for a fight over this 
strange issue. 

But it will not be a fight between organized labor and 
the employing element. It will look at first like that kind 
of a fight, but in reality it will be a conflict in which every 
American that is careful about the Constitution and the 
foundation principles of democracy will have just as much 
at stake as organized labor. 

For this reason, that if this idea of denying to men the 
right to strike and of compelling them to work when they 
do not wish to work receives the sanction of law and is up- 
held by the Supreme Court, we enter upon an entirely new 
period of our society by turning back to conditions and ideas 
dominant in this world 400 years ago, but in modern civili- 
zation held to be impossible. And if we once start upon this 
backward road the-e will be more rights torn up than the 
right to strike, we may be sure. 

Lay aside your prejudices, fellow American, take an im- 
partial look at this matter and see if I am not right. 

All of these measures, plans and programs, the Cummins 
bill, Esch bill, Kansas arbitration law, Colorado strike law, 
blessed dreamings of the childlike second Industrial Confer- 
ence, and all the rest, proceed upon some form of compulsory 
labor. 

The Kansas law provides that industrial disputes must be 
submitted to a board of arbitration, pending which there 
must be no strike. The Colorado law provides that for thirty 
days after giving notice there must be no strike. The In- 
dustrial Conference dream is of a national arbitration board, 
pending whose decision there must be no strike. The Cum- 
mins law provided under drastic penalties that for all rail- 
road men there should be no strike. 

But, first, if by any means you compel a man to work 
against his will you make of him a slave. If you make him 
work thirty days pending arbitration when he is unwilling 
to work, you make him a slave for thirty days. If you com- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 185 

pel him to work for thirty minutes against his will, for thirty- 
minutes you m.ake him a slave. 

This is not sentiment nor extravagance; it is simple fact. 
There is not wit enough in the world to define slavery as 
anything but involuntary servitude nor involuntary servitude 
as anything but slavery, nor undergoing compulsory labor 
while waiting for arbitration as anything but involuntary 
servitude. 

As soon as we perceive that this is so (and it most as- 
suredly is) we bump straight into the Constitution of the 
United States, Amendment XIII, Paragraph i. 

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment 
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist 
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." 

No prohibition could be more direct or explicit. We also 
bump just as directly into the deliberate verdict of enlight- 
ened mankind. 

But, second, suppose Omnipotent Pettifogging to be able 
to find some way to say that black is white and thereby 
evade the plain letter of the Constitution, how would you 
make involuntary servitude practicable in this instance? 

None of the gifted strike suppressors seem to have con- 
sidered this little matter, but I should think it might be 
worth a moment's heed, if we really intend to plunge into 
this species of Carlovingian civilization. 

If you forbid men to strike there must be penalties for 
violating the prohibition. 

These can consist of only fine and imprisonment; there 
is nothing else. 

How will you enforce these — upon men that do not wish 
to work? 

I have asked this question many times. It seems to be 
an eminently practical, reasonable and necessary question. 
I have never succeeded in extracting from these original 
thinkers the semblance of an answer to it. 

There is, however, in the experience of the rest of the 
world answer enough to spare. 

Because — how poor are they that do not read! All of 
this has been threshed out elsewhere, settled and hung up 
in the muniment rooms of ancient history as a thing settled 
forever. 



i86 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

If now the United States, ignorant of what other peoples 
have learned by experience, is to start upon any proposal 
of compulsory labor or compulsory arbitration it will seem 
to the world either incomprehensibly ignorant or else af- 
flicted in its wits. 

It will be Uncle Sam in the novel role of Don Quixote 
donning mediaeval armor and charging at windmills. 

iVo Strikes for 14 Years 

I will cite, for example, the experience of New Zealand. 

Thirty years ago New Zealand likewise was endowed 
with persons that entertained these original thoughts about 
strikes. Thirty years ago they likewise started out to abol- 
ish the annoying strike from the affairs of men. And thirty 
years ago they not only proposed but induced New Zealand 
to adopt compulsory arbitration as its potent remedy. And 
here is what happened: 

They had a national arbitration court or board to which 
all industrial disputes must be referred if a conciliation 
board had not been able to settle them. 

The arbitration board consisted of three members, one 
elected by the labor unions, one by the employers' associa- 
tion and one chosen by the government from the judges of 
courts of record. 

For some years this seemed to work infallibly, so that 
Henry Demorest Lloyd went down there and wrote a book 
in praise of the system. He called it "A Country Without 
Strikes," and so it seemed to be. I added my own humble 
pean of praise because when I went to New Zealand the 
first time there had not been a strike worth the name in 
fourteen years. 

Why Strikes Came Back 

But there was all the time one feature of the situation 
that neither Lloyd nor I nor any other observer noted, and 
that feature so unnoticed was the inevitable ruin of the 
whole thing. 

Year in and year out the judge, the third member of the 
arbitration board, and in practice the only arbitrator, cast 
his deciding vote in each controversy on the side of the 
labor representative and against the claim of the employers. 

With such assistance wages rose steadily in New Zea- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 187 

land, work hours were shortened and work conditions bet- 
tered. 

This was the policy of the government. Dick Seddon 
was prime minister and boss; he was a former miner and 
sturdy on labor's side. 

He died and new influences came into power, including 
gentlemen with titles and much social ambition. 

Soon afterward the employers quietly called attention to 
the fact that manufacturing in New Zealand could not stand 
any more wage increases. The limit had been reached. If 
wages were raised another notch New Zealand would have 
to retire from manufacturing in competition with other coun- 
tries. Exports would cease, imports would greatly increase, 
and the banks — O where would they be? An echo an- 
sv/ered, Where? 

Not long after this the employes of the packing houses 
put in an application for a wage increase. 

Meat packing and preserving was one of the grov/ing in- 
dustries of New Zealand. After the revelations about the 
Chicago packing houses. Great Britain and the Continent 
turned to New Zealand and Australia for meat supplies. 
Great were the hopes for this industry in both countries. 
But the New Zealand packers said they could not go on if 
the new demand of the workers should be granted. 

The case came to a hearing before the arbitration board 
and this time the judge voted with the representative of the 
employers and the demand was refused. 

Then the workers startled the government and the coun- 
try by refusing to accept the award and going out on strike. 

The law provided that awards of the arbitration board 
must be accepted by both sides on penalty of heavy fines. 
Compulsory Arbitration. 

Up to that time, the awards having been generally in 
favor of labor and only prosecutions for failure to accept 
or observe the award had been of employers. Some of these 
had been soaked heavily. 

When the workers in the packing houses refused to ac- 
cept the board's finding the government proceeded in like 
m.anner to enforce the law upon them. 

It came then upon the astounding fact that to enforce 
compulsory arbitration upon an employer and to enforce it 
upon an employe were two totally different propositions. 



i88 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

An employer had a bank account, he had a business, he 
had tangible assets. When he was arrested and brought up 
in court and duly fined the government had something to 
levy on. 

When the packing house workers had been brought up 
in court and duly fined the government could find nothing 
to levy upon but a wash boiler and a skillet. 

Nothing more comical was ever seen. It was the Gil- 
bert and Sullivan of legislation. The unfortunate govern- 
ment danced about like Fantoccini, wringing its poor hands 
and ordering the men to go back to work, and the men just 
laughed and continued their strike. 

It was evident that the law as it stood would not work. 
It wasn't strong enough, said the Original Thinkers, for the 
United States has no monopoly of this order of mind; what 
was needed was imprisonment to bring these disorderly fel- 
lows to their senses. 

"Strengthened" Law; Failed Again 

So the next session of parliament strengthened the law 
until they had made it stiflf enough to suit the sternest Tory 
in the land. Workers that refused to accept the board's 
award or to keep at work when ordered to work were now 
subject to fine or imprisonment or both. And the fines were 
made collectable from the lawless worker's household cflFects 
or anything else that could be levied upon. If he didn't pay 
his fine, to jail with him and meanwhile sell his effects. And 
we guess that will hold them for a while, said the Original 
Thinkers, pleased with themselves and the outlook. 

Not long afterward the coal miners made a demand for 
an increased wage. The arbitration board turned it down. 

The miners refused to accept the award and went out on 
strike. 

Then the majesty of the law descended upon them. They 
were hauled into court and heavily fined, as the law directed. 

They refused to pay the fines. 

Officers now went to the homes of the miners to seize 
household eflFects — as the law directed. 

They siezed washboilers, skillets, tables, flatirons, the 
kitchen stove, the housewife's sewing machine. Seized them 
and carried them away. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 189 

Still the miners refused to go to work or to pay their 
fines. 

Auctions That Didn't Work 

So the government offered for sale the seized household 
efifects, the washboiler, skillet, sewing machine and the rest. 

A crowd of miners' friends gathered at the sale, which 
was by lots, and stood about, hands in pockets. 

The auctioneer bellowed and bleated. Nobody bid. 

"I'll give a shilling (24 cents) for the lot," says one gent 
with his hands in his pockets. In vain the auctioneer bel- 
lowed and bleated. Nobody raised the bid. I am told on 
good authority that to raise that bid would have been re- 
garded as not conducive to health. I do not know. Any 
way, nobody raised it, and the lot went for 24 cents. 

"Now, then," says the purchaser to the crowd, "just lay 
hold and hand these things back into Sam's house, will you?" 

It was the house from which the things had been seized. 
In an hour and a half all of the seized goods were once more 
in the places from which they had been taken, washboilers, 
skillets, stoves and sewing machines, at an expense of from 
12 to 24 cents for each lot. 

At this the country burst again into laughter. Even the 
Original Thinkers, who in the providence of God are denied 
ordinarily the sense of humor, could see that the government 
was doddering again. 

There remained, however, the blessed remedy of the jail 
sentence. So now the poor old government began to fill the 
jails with these criminals that would not work when they 
were told to work. 

About that time it occurred to someone in the govern- 
ment that a man can't mine coal while he is shut up in jail. 
The lavv' was being enforced with a thoroughness exhilarat- 
ing to behold. Jail sentences had been handed out, just as 
the law said, and more were preparing. But there was no 
coal being mined, and it was apparent that the more you 
filled the jails with the miners the less was your chance of 
getting coal. 

Coincident with this remarkable discovery various per- 
sons in different parts of the country began to demand that 
the government should explain the difference between com- 



I90 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

pulsory labor and slavery and to refer significantly to the 
old song that says Britons never, never will be slaves, or 
something to that effect. 

The government took but a short time to ponder this 
problem. With all convenient haste it arranged to save as 
much of its face as still remained to it, and then it aban- 
doned compulsory arbitration. 

By the stone wall route to knowledge it had arrived at 
the fact familiar to even the kindergarten of economics that 
in free and civilized nations you cannot compel men to work 
when they do not wish to work. 

Also that without such compulsion there is no such thing 
as Compulsory Arbitration and cannot be. 

The old Compulsory Arbitration act was not repealed, but 
merely thrown into the discard. In its place was adopted 
a system of voluntary arbitration. Each side chose an arbi- 
trator, these two agreed upon a third, but no one again in- 
dulged in the madman's dream that the findings of these or 
any others could be enforced by law. 

It seems now that by the good old route to the stone 
Vv^all instead of the findings of all human experience we are 
to be led to the same result. 

Right to Strike Fundametital 

For I am not afraid that we shall ever really have Com- 
pulsory Arbitration in this country any more than we are 
likely to have astrology substituted for navigation or the 
Book of Dreams for geometry. But what is to be feared is 
a legal declaration against the right to strike or some law 
to limit, qualify or restrict it. 

Any such legislation would be a huge step backward and 
have the most pernicious effect upon all movement for bet- 
ter conditions, and in this generation all hopes for a wider 
and truer democracy. 

Because the right to strike is absolutely fundamental. It 
is the most primitive and obvious of all rights. It is the first 
right that man secured when he began to break out of the 
dungeon of serfdom. It is the beginning and primer of all 
other rights. If man has not the right to refrain from work 
when he wishes not to work he has no rights at all. If the 
reactionaries can break down that right they can break 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 191 

down all the rest. If such a right can be taken away, free- 
dom of the press, freedom of speech, of assembly, of pe- 
tition, and of the ballot can very easily be denied. Those 
that are familiar with the fight that has been necessary to 
keep this Congress from destroying those rights will not tol- 
erate any scheme that will not only leave those rights without 
a defense, but make their repeal eminently logical and proper. 

Labor's Last Chance 

It is this issue that with the ownership of the nation's 
highways stands out in the coming election. If the workers 
of this country were united, or had any habit of voting for 
themselves instead of voting for their exploiters we should 
never have heard a question of the right to strike. It is 
because statesmanship at Washington is convinced labor will 
never wake up that it dares to put over such arrant knaver- 
ies as were contained in the railroad bills. Exploitation in 
this country persists through the divisions of the exploited 
and for no other reason. 

It' is so with the wage workers. 

So, and still worse. This year will be about the last call 
of grace to American labor. If it will not get together to 
defend itself this year it will have served notice upon all it'? 
enemies that it is nothing but a mass of putty to be shaped 
as exploitation may please. 

The primaries are before the workers and the believers 
in human rights and in essential democracy. Through the 
primaries we have in most states practically unlimited powc 
If the next Congress contains a majority of men ready to 
make further onslaughts upon the rights of labor and the 
frindaniental lav/, the fault will be ours, but the victory will 
be Reaction's, and with such a victory God onlv knows where 
it Vv-ill stop. 



COMPULSION DOES NOT INSURE PEACE^ 

Australia and New Zealand have gone farther than any 
other countries inhabited by English-speaking men in testing 
socialistic and extremely paternal government. They have 

1 Cleveland Plain Dealer (Editorial). January 28, 1913. 



192 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ventured upon experiments which have no parallel in the civil- 
ized world. 

Among the results which these antipodean nations— for they 
are virtually independent in all things affecting their own af- 
fairs — claim to have achieved is the abolition of strikes. They 
have boasted that their compulsory arbitration laws have put 
an end to strikes and lockouts and insured industrial peace. 

Recent facts do not sustain the claim that such gains have 
been made. In twelve months Australia has had eighty-eight 
strikes, notwithstanding the drastic state and federal compul- 
sory arbitration laws. Australia has less than 5,000,000 in- 
habitants, or about 5 per cent of the population of the United 
States. The country is of immense extent and the natural con-< 
ditions, with manufactures at a minimum and agriculture and 
sKeep raising of outstanding importance, are such that labor 
troubles ought to be few and of little moment. Yet here is 
the equivalent, in proportion to the population, of about 1,760 
strikes in the United States. 

It is not strange, in the face of such facts, that the author 
of the federal arbitration act said, not long ago, that never had 
the labor troubles of the country given thoughtful citizens more 
concern. The commonwealth had instituted the boldest and 
most advanced experiments with the object of preventing 
strikes and lockouts but there was an imparalleled condition of 
turmoil and unrest. Mr. Deakin added that, "We appear to 
have been practically successful in preventing employers from 
locking out their men, but we seem to have been unsuccess- 
ful, in most instances, in deahng with strikes." 

Here is a picture of the results of compulsion in labor dis- 
putes which is of a piece with the recent news from New Zea- 
land that an officer and a citizen were killed and other persons 
seriously wounded, some of them mortallj', in a strike riot at 
Waihi. Revolvers were freely used and the authorities were 
unable to stop the fighting between the strikers and the non- 
union men until much bloodshed had taken place. And all this 
in a country blessed with fertile soil and a beautiful climate 
where about 1,000,000 persons occupy for their own use and 
profit almost as great an area as that of Italy or two and one- 
half times the space Ohio fills on the map. 

These conditions in countries where compulsory arbitration 
has been tried to the fullest extent and in the most radical 
form make a sorry contrast with the virtual freedom of Ca- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 193 

nada, with a much larger population than that of Australia 
and New Zealand combined, from serious labor troubles. In 
the Dominion there is no forced arbitration, but the govern- 
ment does compel both sides to make their position and argu- 
ments known before a strike or a lockout. Publicity is obliga- 
tory and given official weight and sanction. The rest is left 
to public sentiment, and the weight of the popular verdict is 
almost always sufficient. 

The plain truth is that men do not like to be driven. They 
rebel at force. The most powerful labor organizations in this 
country have steadily opposed arbitration made compulsory by 
law. They demand freedom of action just as naturally as em- 
ployers do. Publicity and public opinion get results impossible 
from the Australian method. 



THE ANTI-STRIKE BILL' 

The right to strike is not one that is peculiar to industrial 
labor alone — it is as universal as human life itself. 

Supposing that the packers run down the price of hogs and 
live stock to a point where the farmers' profits are such that 
he cannot afford to raise them and he finds the growing of 
grain more profitable — what does he do? He reduces his pro- 
duction of live stock and increases his grain production. In 
other words, he goes on a strike as a live stock producer, pro- 
vided the slump continues long enough. And no matter how 
much the public needs hogs and beef, we would not expect 
the farmer to be so unselfish and philanthropic that he would 
continue to raise cattle and hogs at a loss to enrich the packers, 
even though the public suffered. Just recently the cotton 
growers of the South formed a large organization with millions 
of dollars of capital to build cotton warehouses in which to 
store their product and hold it for higher prices, and, no mat- 
ter how much the public may need cotton, they will hold it 
for what they think they show good sense in so doing, but 
they have prepared to go on a strike — to hold their product off 
the market until the market comes to their terms. The Farm- 
ers' Milk Producers association in Illinois has just been tried 
and acquitted for going on a strike. They refused to furnish 

1 Extract from address of F. C. Canfield, President of the Iowa State 
Federation of Labor. Iowa Unionist. January 15, 1920. 



194 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

milk to the distributors excepting at the price which the farmer 
producers fixed. They let their milk spoil first — and I can't 
blame them. Yet they are pilloried as the starvers of suckling 
babes, because they would not furnish their product excepting 
at the price which they set through their collective bargaining 
agencies. 

Capital also goes on a strike at times. When money is in 
great demand, the banks increase their rates of interest, which 
merely means that capital has struck for higher wages, and 
neither you nor I can get money, no matter how good our se- 
curity, unless we pay the rates demanded. Supposing the steel 
corporation should find it immensely more profitable to use all 
its output for steel rails for Europe instead of for steel build- 
ing materials for this country. It would go on a strike so far 
as the manufacture of construction materials for the United 
States is concerned, and no matter how badly the public might 
be in need of steel frame work for new buildings, it would 
go hang until it was willing to match the profit which Europe 
would pay for the steel rails. Now, unfortunately for the in- 
dustrial laborer, he is not able, as a farmer and the manu- 
facturer are, to direct his efforts along other lines when one 
line becomes unremunerative. He has but one line and that 
is his labor in the industry in which he is skilled. The farmer 
may turn from live stock raising to grain growing, and the 
steel corporation from building materials to steel rails, but the 
coal miner, the steel worker, is only that and nothing else. 
When he strikes, his work ceases altogether. 

I will concede that the strike is a dangerous weapon — that 
it has been improperly employed at times — that it should not 
be used excepting as a last resort — but, conceding all these. 
I still maintain that it is labor's only weapon of defense, and 
when you take it away arbitrarily, you have disarmed one party 
to a controversy and have left him at the mercy of a fully 
armed adversary, whose attitude has never been characterized 
by an over-abundant love of mercy or justice. 

We hear much these days of the rights of the public being 
paramount to that of any one class — and that is true. But the 
public is only made up of various classes and the right to strike 
is a common one to all classes — to the farmers, to capital — 
to everyone, as I have shown, although we call it by different 
names. It is a fundamental human right that we should be 
very slow to tamper with or to deny to any one class while 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES I95 

permitting it to other classes, no matter how it may be dis- 
guised. But, conceding that the public's right to coal, to trans- 
portation, to any of the other necessities of life and business 
is paramount, there is an equally great obligation the other 
way, and I think that logically it comes before the public's 
obligation to see that the laboring men in every essential in- 
dustry are protected in their right to a fair wage, to a reason- 
able standard of living, to proper working conditions. If the 
public will see to that, it will not need to concern itself in 
denying labor the right to strike, for strikes are but a symptom, 
not the disease, and it is better to treat the disease than to 
seek to relieve merely the symptom. Give the workingmen of 
the United States justice and fair dealing, and they will not 
resort to the strike. The working man suffers with everyone 
else when he strikes — in fact, be suffers as a rule more than 
anyone else. He strikes because he feels he is forced to do so 
in self -protection. Let society protect him, and it will have re- 
moved the danger of strikes by removing their cause. , 
Many plans for dealing with strikes through compulsory 
arbitration are being suggested, such as that proposed by 
Senator Cummins, and I would be guilty of cowardly evasion 
if I did not saj^ frankly that labor has been very suspicious 
of compulsory arbitration. This is due to two reasons. One 
is the bitter experience which labor has had v/ith arbitration 
boards in the past. It has often felt that the power and in- 
fluence of capital have enabled it to pack arbitration boards, to 
influence unduly decisions rendered, and to grant labor less 
than it was justly entitled to. But there is more fundamental 
ground than that why labor views with some alarm and sus- 
picion the proposals for compulsory arbitration and that is be- 
cause in dealing with labor you are dealing with a human and 
not a property right. Two men may get into a dispute over 
the ownership of a piece of property and arbitrate their dif- 
ferences or go to court for a settlement. But labor is not a 
commodity. It is human toil, and strength and life. Its rights 
transcend mere property rights. A man may arbitrate a dis- 
pute over a boundary line, but he will not arbitrate the years 
he may be permitted to live. Furthermore, labor feels that in 
the past it has been robbed of its share in the wealth which 
it has created by the sweat of its brow, and to ask it to arbi- 
trate what it regards as its just claim to the reward of indus- 
try would be like asking the man who captures the burglar 



196 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

in his house to arbitrate with the thief over how much of the 
stolen silverware he shall part with. So I say that labor will 
be slow to accept compulsory arbitration out of its bitter ex- 
perience of the past and out of its belief that no man and no 
set of men is good enough or wise enough to have autocratic 
and compulsory power over the time, the efforts and the very 
lives of other men. 

There is just one other point I wish to make, and that is 
to refer to the alternative which you force upon labor when 
you deny it the age-old right to strike openly and legally. The 
only choice left is for labor to "strike on the job" or to in- 
dulge in what we call "sabotage." 

Let me emphasize the danger of sabotage. Organized labor 
is noted for its superior degree of intelligence, for its superior 
and high order of mental attainment; this intelligence and high 
mental attainment is being used today in the interest of in- 
creased production for the betterment of society. 

If labor, skilled mechanics are denied the right to enforce its 
just demands by the use of their strike weapon, what assurance 
is there that that high degree of intelligence will not be used 
unlawfully in direct insiduous sabotage. 

There is great danger in attempting to force labor to work, 
by drastic legislation. We cannot by legislative power force 
labor to use its high intelligence to increase production either 
for profit of individuals or society as a whole and deny it its 
right to enforce a fair return for its effort. 

Organized labor today is the chief bulwark against red 
radicalism in the United States, and whenever you do some- 
thing that weakens the power of the labor leader, who de- 
sires evolution in place of revolution, you are simply weakening 
that defense — you are lending aid and comfort to the common 
enemy, which, as I have said, is the enemy of organized labor 
no less than the enemy of the government. But if you deny 
to organized labor its ancient and natural right to strike openly, 
you encourage the radical who preaches sabotage. If labor 
cannot strike as free human beings strike — openly, manfully, 
legally — it will strike in the more insidious way that will 
cripple industry even more effectually than the open strike, 
and in a way which it is infinitely harder to meet. 

Today, when the world is calling for increased production, 
when we need "speeding up" in every line of industry, let us 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ig7 

not encourage the subtle weapon of the I. W. W., who loafs on 
the job, destroys machines and cripples industry in the dark. 
So I plead with you today that we shall direct our atten- 
tion towards correcting injuries, towards providing the square 
deal for industrial labor, as well as for capital, which is all or- 
ganized labor is asking. If you will do this, we will not need 
to concern ourselves with the question of forbidding strikes, 
for then the laborers' and the employers' interest will be iden- 
tical. There would have been no steel strike, no coal strike, 
if there had not been injustice and intolerable working and 
living conditions. Labor does owe society the right to live in 
comfort, but it is a mutual obligation. The interests of labor 
and of society at large are identical. The one can not pros- 
per at the expense of the other. Strikes mean wasted effort, 
dissipated energy for society, and they mean all this and more 
for the working man who strikes. I hope to live to see the day 
when strikes have become ancient history, but we will not and 
should not reach that day by making them illegal, but by mak- 
ing them unnecessary. Let us not get the cart before the horse, 
nor treat the symptom instead of the disease. 



BRIEF EXCERPTS 

Compulsory Arbitration means, in fact, the fixing of wages 
by law. — Webb. Industrial Democracy, p. 245. 

Compulsory Arbitration is as impossible as it is un- 
desirable.— William J. Bryan, Commoner. 20 13 January, 1920. 

Since 1886, at least, strikes have not been increasing as 
fast as the population of the country. — Adams and Sumner. 
Labor Problems, 8th edition, p. 179. 

The [New Zealand Arbitration] Court, while nominally 
a judicial body, in reality legislates upon terms of employ- 
ment throughout the whole colony. — Adams and Sumner. 
Labor Problems, p. 321. 

A few years ago opinion appeared to be setting toward com- 
pulsory arbitration as the readiest means of avoiding the tre- 
mendous loss and inconvenience arising from strikes; but of 
late we seem to be moving away from it rather than toward it. 
Chancellor Lloyd-George told the London Bankers' Association 



198 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

the other day that labor was strongly opposed to it, and that 
he had been much impressed by the "suspicious attitude" of 
workmen toward interference by the state. — Saturday Evening 
Post. June 6, 1912. 

There are some who have urged the commission to rec- 
ommend the adoption of compulsory arbitration, but we can- 
not see our way to recommend any such drastic measure. 
We do not believe that in the United States such a system 
would meet with general approval or with success. Apart 
from the apparent lack of constitutional power to enact laws 
providing for compulsory arbitration, our industries are too 
vast and too complicated for the practical application of 
such a system. — Report of the Anthracite Coal Strike Com- 
viission, 1902. 

The industrial relations law of Kansas, said Mr. Gompers, 
has taken from the workers their right of membership in 
themselves. They must work by order of the law, by order 
of the court under penalty of fine and imprisonment. If 
strikes conducted by well regulated organizations like the 
organized labor movement, are to be outlawed, then China 
ought to stand at the head of civilization. You will find them 
in the countries where discontent and injustice prevail; the 
manifestations will be deeper and more disastrous actions than 
strike. — Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1920. 

I know of only one system of handling labor disputes 
through government agencies that has operated successfully, 
and that is the method used by the U. S. Department of Labor, 
through v/hat is known as the Conciliation Division over which 
the Seceretary of Labor presides. Its function is to bring the 
two sides together and to aid them in adjusting their differences 
by conciliation and mediation first, and, finally, by suggestions 
leading towards arbitration in which the government, however, 
does not participate. That system operates successfully. — Vic- 
tor A. Olander. Seamen's Journal. 2)Z :2. April 21, 1920. 

The sentiment of both employers and employees in the 
United States is almost universally opposed to compulsory ar- 
bitration as a general method of settUng labor disputes. They 
deprecate it on the ground that it would involve the ultimate 
reference of even the most important matters, the general terms 
of the labor contract, to persons or authorities entirely out- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES i99 

side the trade concerned, and that it would be difficult to en- 
force the decisions of arbitrators without most rigorous 
measures. Both of these difficulties have already been discussed 
under other heads. — Report of the Industrial Commission igoi. 
vol. 19, p. 861. 

Strikes among certain classes of employees are, indeed, 
never justifiable, and among these classes are undeniably 
our transportation employees. But we can not, merely be- 
cause we must have uninterrupted transportation, chain these 
men to their posts as the Romans chained their galley slaves 
to the oars. The duty of refraining to strike against the 
public, which in a democracy is rebellion against the gov- 
ernment itself, implies a corresponding obligation upon the 
public, through its representatives, to provide the employees 
in the public utilities with the best working conditions and 
the fairest wages. — Senator David I. Jf^alsh. Congressional 
Record, December iS, 1919. 

It is not easy to show that compulsory arbitration has 
greatly benefited the workers of the Dominion [New Zea- 
land]. Sweating has been abolished, but it is a question 
whether it would not have disappeared in the years of pros- 
perity without the help of the Arbitration Court. Strikes 
have been prevented, but New Zealand never suffered much 
from strikes, and it is possible that the workers might have 
gained as much, or m.ore, by dealing directly with their em- 
ployers as by the mediation of the court. As to wages, it is 
generally admitted that they have not increased more than 
the cost of living. — Le Rossignol and Stezvart. State Socialism 
in New Zealand, p. 243. 

In my judgment, we certainly have no right to compel men, 
either singly or collectively, to work for a railroad against their 
will ; and, to repeat the illustration that I think I used the other 
day, suppose that when this bill passes and these railroads go 
back to their owners the wages are reduced 25 per cent, and 
this tribunal — which is the Transportation Board in this bill, 
a tribunal which in all probability will be made up of former 
railway executives — approves that cut of 25 per cent. Are you 
going to put 2,000,000 men in jail in this country because they 
collectively agree that they will not longer remain in the service 
of the carrier at that wage? Yet that is exacth' the situation 



200 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

that may well arise if the pending provisions of the bill are 

enacted into law. — Senator Irving L. Lenroot, Congressional 
Record. December i8, 1919. 

Compulsory Arbitration has not prevented strikes in Aus- 
tralia. While it has, perhaps, lessened the number of strikes 
among the smaller unions, there is still the fact that the larger 
and stronger unions have over and over again refused to ac- 
cept the decisions of the courts when they did not suit them. 
Where the courts declared their strikes illegal, the declara- 
tion was as worthless as if it were never written. And because 
of the power of the workers at the ballot box, no govern- 
ment has ever seriously attempted to enforce the anti-strike 
law. Anyhow, the idea of enforcing strike penalties is repug- 
nant to the Australian character, and bitterly resented. Vic- 
timisation in any shape or form is hotly condemned not only 
by the workers but by the Australian people generally. — W. F. 
Ahearn. Reconstruction. 2:24. Jmtuary, 1920. 

It is our aim to avoid strikes, but I trust that the day 
will never come when the workers of our country will have 
so far lost their manhood and independence as to surrender 
their right to strike or refuse to strike. We seek to prevent 
strikes, but we realize that the best means by which they 
can be averted is to be the better prepared for them. We 
endeavor to prevent strikes, but there are some conditions 
far worse than strikes, and among them is a demoralized, 
degraded and debased manhood. Lest our attitude be mis- 
construed, we emphatically, and without ambiguity, declare 
our position. The right to quit work at any time, and for 
any reason sufficient to the workman himself, is the concrete 
expression of individual liberty. — Samuel Gonipcrs. Address he- 
fore the Arbitration Conference, Chicago, 1900. 

The promise for the future lies in the rapid spread among 
both employers and employees of the idea of what is called 
in general terms industrial democracy, or in specific language 
the shop committee plan. The fundamental principle of this 
idea is that the wage-workers shall have, through the elec- 
tion of delegates or committees, some voice in the manage- 
ment of industry, especially as regards hours and conditions 
of labor, productve efficiency, and profits. If, through the 
practical application of this principle, capital and labor can 
be converted from inimical and mutually suspicious antagon- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 201 

ists into partners working for mutual interests and with mu- 
tual confidence, American industry may enter upon a phase 
of productive efficiency and creative satisfaction such as it 
has never known before in its entire history. — Outlook (edi- 
torial) 125:11. May 5, 1920. 

The general public, "this so-called innocent third party," 
was arraigned as "the only wrong doer in industry" today 
by Henry Sterling, chairman of the Legislative committee of 
the American Federation of Labor, appearing before a Sen- 
ate sub-committee to oppose the Poindexter anti-strike bill 
for railroads. 

The proposed legislation was "founded on the theory that 
the public must not be inconvenienced, must get everything 
it wants right away," he said, and added: 

"Did it ever occur to you that the public doesn't give 
a d for the man who works? 

"The public is the only wrongdoer in industry. The only 
party considered in the conflict is this so-called innocent 
third party, while as soon as we who work take some action 
for our own welfare, they only v.fant to put us in iai\."^Press 
Dispatch. May 20, 1920. 

We are opposed to any system of Compulsory Arbitration; 
there is no reason to believe that such a system is generally 
desired by employers and employed and, in the absence of such 
general acceptance, it is obvious that its imposition would lead 
to unrest. The experience of Compulsory Arbitration dur- 
ing the war has shown that it is not a successful method of 
avoiding strikes, and in normal times it would undoubtedly 
prove even less successful. Disputes can only be avoided by 
agreement between employers and workers and by giving to the 
latter the greater measure of interest in the industry advocated 
in our former reports ; but agreement may naturally include the 
decision of both parties to refer any specified matter or mat- 
ters to arbitration, whether this decision is reached before or 
after a dispute arises. (Report of the Committee on Relations 
between Employers and Employed of the British Ministry of 
Reconstruction.) January 31, 1918. Monthly Labor Review 7: 
457. 

Generally speaking, what is called voluntary arbitration 
is resorted to only when one side is strong enough to com- 
pel the other to submit to it, or when public sentiment be- 



202 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

comes so thoroughly aroused that arbitration is practically- 
forced upon the belligerents. Compulsory arbitration, on 
the other hand, introduces a new element — the power of the 
State. It is binding upon both parties irrespective of their 
comparative strength, and the decision or award is not in 
accordance with the strength or weakness of the employees, 
but with the wishes and purpose of the state, which com- 
pels the arbitration. Compulsory arbitration is, therefore, 
apart from all other questions, largely a matter of the 
strength, stability, wisdom, impartiality, and honesty of the 
government; and the experience of honest government with 
compulsory arbitration cannot be conclusively cited for 
countries with corrupted governments or vice versa. — John 
Mitchell. Organised Labor, p. 337. 

There should be fair tribunals to adjust wage and labor dif- 
ferences in the essential industries at least, and then there 
should be a government control strong enough to prevent any 
single class seeking by force or cunning to escape the judg- 
ment of a fair court and impose its will upon the whole pub- 
lic to the detriment of all except the few organized for this 
purpose. 

The Cummins Bill [Compulsory Arbitration] protects 
every individual right to choose occupations and to leave a job 
whenever, wherever and for whatever reason an individual 
wishes to do so. That is an American citizen's right. But 
the Cummins Bill protects the public's right to say to any 
organization of individuals created or permitted under the laws, 
that such organizations shall not deliberately create conditions 
so one class has a stranglehold on the rest of the public, and 
then proceeds to use that stranglehold under the guise of indi- 
vidual liberty. — 5". /. Lowell, Master of the National Grange. 
Law and Labor. 2: 45. February, 1920. 

Bad for Skilled Workers 

One of the main reasons for discontent under arbitration 
is the levelling-down process that the system makes for. The 
unskilled worker has secured many benefits, in the way of bet- 
ter conditions and higher wages under arbitration. In many 
cases, he has acquired a decent status because of arbitration. 

But as regards the skilled worker, arbitration has in many 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 203 

cases worked otherwise. The wages fixed by the courts have 
generally become the standards. Very few, in a general sense, 
have been able to get above the minimum rates, which, being 
fixed by the courts, have become the maximum. For the skilled 
worker then, arbitration has brought about a levelling down 
to a common plane. The best and the worst workers get the 
same pay. This has bred personal jealousies amongst the men, 
caused friction, and led, in some cases, to reduced efficiency on 
the part of the better and faster tradesmen, who fail to see why 
they should do more work for the same money paid to their 
less skilled and slower shop-mates. — W. F. Ahearn, Editor "The 
Worker," Sidney, Australia, in Reconstruction. 2:24. January, 
1920. 

Employers, who formerly condemned arbitration, now say 
that "arbitration has become an essential part of our social 
machinery and must be retained and assisted" simply because 
they have discovered that all they have to do is to flood the 
arbitration court with cases, and the court becoming congested, 
the cases cannot be heard till some time in the future. 

There are cases now pending in the Arbitration Courts 
which cannot possibly be heard within the next two years. 
Meanwhile the workers have to keep working under existing 
awards, as any strike on their part while a case is registered 
in the courts, means that they are cancelled as a union and 
their awards are nullified, and they are again at starting point. 

Thus arbitration can be, and is, a very good weapon for 
the unscrupulous employer wishing to fend off an award for 
increased wages till some time in the future. There is also this 
bitter realization on the part of the workers. During the time 
that the cases are thus hung up in the courts, the claims be- 
come obsolete, the cost of living on which they were based, 
has increased, and they are faced with either contesting a claim 
that is worthless to them or withdrawing the old claims and 
setting up fresh ones. — W. F. Ahearn. Reconstruction. 2:24. 
January, 1920. 

The representatives of employers and workingmen, who 
have testified before the Industrial Commission, have almost 
uniformly opposed compulsory arbitration. Their arguments 
are more fully set forth in the digests of testimony of vari- 
ous reports of the commission. (See volume 4, p. 149; volume 



204 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

7, p. 127; volume 12, p. clvii.) Several state boards of arbi- 
tration in the United States have also, from time to time, ex- 
pressed their opinion against compulsory arbitration as a 
general principle, and one or two of the boards have specifically 
opposed it in any form. These boards in New York, Indiana, 
Ohio, and Illinois, however, have favored compulsion in certain 
cases, especially as to disputes which, on account of their bit- 
terness and violence, endanger life and the public welfare, or 
which, like those on great railroad systems or on street rail- 
ways, entail great inconvenience and loss upon the people 
generally. The United States strike commission, which in- 
vestigated the great railroad strike of 1894, reported against 
compulsory settlement of labor disputes on railways, but ad- 
vocated the establishment of a commission with power to in- 
vestigate such disputes and to recommend terms of settlement 
to the parties, as well as to make public its opinions as to the 
merits of the dispute. — Report of the Indiistrial Commission. 
1901. vol. 17. p. cxiii. 

Compulsory arbitration means the opening up of the en- 
tire subject matter. It means conditions that are contrary 
to the spirit of our institutions and may lead to conditions 
that are contrary to the spirit of human rights. Compul- 
sory arbitration if it means anything, means that the em- 
ployer may be compelled to operate upon an award made 
by the Board of Arbitration that would lead to a loss and 
ultimately the wiping out of his entire capital, or it may, on 
the other hand, lead to employes being compelled to work 
under conditions that are onerous to them, that would be a 
species of slavery. Compulsory arbitration, in addition to 
opening up the entire field for consideration, creates a con- 
dition that is unfair to the employe, because in dealing with 
the problems before the Board of Arbitration, then the whole 
subject matter is thrown open, the employer is protected by 
a clean-cut dividing line between profit and loss, which can 
be shown by his records. He is protected in presenting his 
case before the Board of Arbitration, by that clean-cut divid- 
ing line, but the employe has no such clean-cut dividing line. 
The standard of living is flexible. It may be raised or low- 
ered and the workman still lives, so the workman has no di- 
viding line to protect him. — Hon. William B. Wilson, Secre- 
tary of Labor, in The Colliery Engineer. 34 :296. December, 1913. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 205 

Testimony of Carroll D. Wright, former Commissioner of 
Labor 

The first economic result of compulsory arbitration would 
be to compel the manufacturer, for instance, to pay a certain 
wage under penalties of law, which is a very direct attempt to 
establish wages by law, and hence prices; and any compulsory 
arbitration law ought to provide that if the prices are not paid, 
such as would be necessitated by the lawful wage, the purchaser 
should be held responsible in some way. And, on the other 
hand, it would compel the employee to work for a wage which 
he did not v/ish to, and hold him responsible under some form 
of penalty for not working for $1.80 or $2 — ^$1.80 when he 
was getting $2, for instance — and there is no law big enough 
to put everybody in jail. Some would have to be left outside. 
Every time that any country has attempted to fix wages by 
law, whether in America or in Europe, there has been a very 
contemptible failure. The second effect of compulsory arbitra- 
tion would be to compel the employer to shut up his works, 
and of all employees, if they did not like the decision, to quit 
work and leave the country. The third would be, if the manu- 
facturer saw fit to carry on his works under the decision of a 
court of compulsory arbitration, to compel him to join a trust 
immediately; and I think if the government ever wants to drive 
everybody into the trust form of carrying on business the com- 
pulsory arbitration would be perfectly satisfactory. It seems 
to me it would kill industry. I have no faith in it, either from 
a moral or economic view. I have always so expressed myself. 
It is a doctrine which, so far as I know, finds no approval of 
organized labor anywhere. I have never known of any trade 
unionist, or member of a labor organization of whatever 
character, to approve compulsory arbitration. There may have 
been cases. Certainly the employer would not approve it. 
While I believe in arbitration as a help, never as a solution of 
labor problems, it seems to me that compulsory arbitration 
would be a positive mlnry.— Report of the Industrial Commis- 
sion [1901]. 7:11-12. 



Prosecutions to 
enforce awards 


Prosecutions for 

strikes and 

lockouts 


561 


6 


539 


69 


464 


a 


436 


SO 


363 


7 


340 





a85 





194 


17 


388 






206 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

NEW ZEALAND ARBITRATION STATISTICS : 

Awards in 

Year arbitration 

1910 89 

I9i» 74 

1913 80 

1913 94 

1914 93 

X915 71 

1916 103 

1917 168 

X918 114 

Total 88s 3470 151 

* Research Report No. 33, National Industrial Conference Board, p. 
39 and 31. 

STRIKES IN NEW ZEALAND* 

Year Number 

1894-1905 o 

1906 I 

1907 12 

1908 13 

1909 4 

1910 II 

19" • IS 

19x3 20 

I913 23 

19x4 46 

1915 4 

1916 7 

19J7 8 

igi8 6 

Total 169 

^Research Report No. 33, National Industrial Conference Board, p. 31. 



PART IV 

COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION OF 
INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 



AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION 



COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION^ 

"Compulsory investigation," but "not to the extent of 
compulsory arbitration," is the pertinent suggestion of the 
Senate committee that investigated the steel strike in a re- 
port that appears to be broad and judicial, and calculated to 
carry conviction. 

It is apparent that the lack of some agency before which 
disputes between capital and labor can be brought for in- 
vestigation has been a serious handicap in securing industrial 
adjustments. Not only should this medium be available to 
both parties to the dispute, but these investigations should 
be compulsory. The strike or lockout may follow, but the 
facts would first be published by an impartial agency, and 
the public could then take sides according to its inclination. 

Under present conditions a great upheaval occurs in in- 
dustry. The public becomes a party to the controversy with- 
out having an intelligent understanding of the case. Claims 
diametrically opposed are put forth by the steel company 
and by its men, while the public knows little of the merits 
of the case. Public opinion has been inclined against the 
strikes in some cases not because the strikers have no griev- 
ance, but because they have not presented it in the right 
way. Similar conditions exist in regard to the coal strike. 
Charges and counter-charges have been made, but no one 
who is disinterested seems to know the facts. Few doubt 
the men have a grievance, a very serious grievance, but the 
injection of revolutionary talk has aroused prejudices that 
have obscured the real issue. 

What the Senate committee found after the strike had 
been declared should have been discovered before the strike 
was called. And had the facts been known, had they been 

^Editorial in the Public. 22:1108. November 29, 1919. 



2IO COAIPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

set forth by some tribunal or other body commanding pub- 
lic confidence, informed public opinion would have compelled 
redress. Compulsory arbitration is so repugnant to labor 
that its use would be inadvisable even if such a law could 
be enacted. But compulsory investigation should be wel- 
comed by all honest parties to a controversy. With free 
discussion of labor troubles and impartial reports of the 
facts, public opinion will compel a settlement. 

PRESIDENT WILSON RECOMAIENDS 
COMPULSORY INVESTIGATION^ 

I have come to you to seek your assistance in dealing 
with a very grave situation which has arisen out of the de- 
mand of the employees of the railroads engaged in freight 
train service that they be granted an eight-hour working 
day, safeguarded by payment for an hour and a half of serv- 
ice for every hour of work beyond the eight. 

The matter has been agitated for more than a year. The 
public has been made familiar with the demands of the men 
and the arguments urged in favor of them, and even more 
familiar with the objections of the railroads and their coun- 
ter demand that certain privileges now enjoyed by their 
men and certain bases of payment worked out through many 
years of contest be reconsidered, especially in their relation 
to the adoption of an eight hour day. The matter came 
some three weeks ago to a final issue and resulted in a com- 
plete deadlock between the parties. The means provided by 
law for the mediation of the controversy failed and the 
means of arbitration for which the law provides were rejected. 
The representatives of the railway executives proposed that 
the demands of the men be submitted in their entirety to arbi- 
tration, along with certain questions of readjustment as to 
pay and conditions of employment which seemed to them 
to be either closely associated with the demands or to call 
for reconsideration on their own merits; the men absolutely 
declined arbitration, especially if any of their established 

^ Extract from the special address of President Wilson in Congress 
on the threatened railroad strike and the eight-hour law. August 39, 1916. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 211 

privileges were by that means to be drawn again in ques- 
tion. The law in the matter put no compulsion upon them. 
The four hundred thousand men from whom the demands 
proceeded had voted to strike if their demands were re- 
fused; the strike was imminent; it has since been set for the 
fourth of September next. It affects the rnen who man the 
freight trains on practically every railway in the country. 
The freight service throughout the United States must stand 
still until their places are filled, if, indeed, it should prove 
possible to fill them at all. Cities will be cut off from their 
food supplies, the whole commerce of the nation will be 
paralyzed, men of every sort and occupation will be thrown 
out of employment, countless thousands will in all likeli- 
hood be brought, it may be, to the very point of starvation, 
and a tragical national calamity brought on, to be added to 
the other distresses of the time, because no basis of accom- 
modation or settlement has been found. 
* * * 

I yield to no man in firm adherence, alike of conviction 
and of purpose, to the principle of arbitration in industrial 
disputes; but matters have come to a sudden crisis in this 
particular dispute and the country has been caught unpro- 
vided with any practical means of enforcing that convic- 
tion in practice (by whose fault we will not now stop to 
inquire). A situation had to be met whose elements and fixed 
conditions were indisputable. The practical and patriotic 
course to pursue, as it seemed to me, was to secure imme- 
diate peace by conceding the one thing in the demands of 
the men which society itself and any arbitrators who repre- 
sented public sentiment were most likely to approve, and 
immediately lay the foundations for securing arbitration with 
regard to everything else involved. The event has confirmed 
that judgment. 

I was seeking to compose the present in order to safe- 
guard the future; for I wished an atmosphere of peace and 
friendly cooperation in which to take counsel with the rep- 
resentatives of the nation with regard to the best means 
for providing, so far as it might prove possible to provide, 
against the recurrence of such unhappy situations in the fu- 
ture — the best and most practicable means of securing calm 



212 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

and fair arbitration of all industrial disputes in the days to 
come. This is assuredly the best way of vindicating a prin- 
ciple, namely, having failed to make certain of its observance 
in the present, to make certain of its observance in the future. 

But I could only propose. I could not govern the will 
of others who took an entirely different view of the circum- 
stances of the case, who even refused to admit the circum- 
stances to be what they have turned out to be. 

Having failed to bring the parties to this critical contro- 
versy to an accommodation, therefore, I turn to you, deem- 
ing it clearly our duty as public servants to leave nothing 
undone that we can do to safeguard the life and interests 
of the nation. In the spirit of such a purpose, I earnestly 
recommend the following legislation: 

* ♦ * 

Fifth, an amendment of the existing federal statute which 
provides for the mediation, conciliation, and arbitration of 
such controversies as the present by adding to it a provision 
that in case the methods of accommodation now provided 
for should fail, a full public investigation of the merits of 
every such dispute shall be instituted and completed before 
a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

There is one other thing we should do if we are true 
champions of arbitration. We should make all arbitral 
awards judgments by record of a court of law in order that 
their interpretation and enforcement may lie, not with one 
of the parties to the arbitration, but with an impartial and 
authoritative tribunal. 

These things I urge upon you, not in haste or merely 
as a means of meeting a present emergency, but as perma- 
nent and necessary additions to the law of the land, sug- 
gested, indeed, by circumstances we had hoped never to see, 
but imperative as well as just, if such emergencies are to 
be prevented in the future. I feel that no extended argu- 
ment is needed to commend them to your favorable consid- 
eration. They demonstrate themselves. The time and the 
occasion only give emphasis to their importance. We need 
them now and we shall continue to need them. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 213 

PRESIDENT WILSON "EARNESTLY RENEWS" 
HIS RECOMMENDATIONS' 

I realize the limitations of time under which you will neces- 
sarily act at this session and shall make my suggestions as few 
as possible; but there were some things left undone at the last 
session, which there will now be time to complete and which it 
seems necessary in the interest of the public to do at once. 

In the first place, it seems to me imperatively necessary 
that the earliest possible consideration and action should be 
accorded the remaining measures of the programme of -set- 
tlement and regulation which I had occasion to recommend 
to you at the close of your last session in view of the public 
dangers disclosed by the unaccommodated difficulties which 
then existed, and which still unhappily continue to exist, be- 
tween the railroads of the country and their locomotive en- 
gineers, conductors, and trainmen. 

I then recommended: 

* * * 

Fifth, an amendment of the existing federal statute which 
provides for the mediation, conciliation, and arbitration of 
such controversies as the present by adding to it a pro- 
vision that, in case the methods of accommodation now pro- 
vided for should fail, a full public investigation of the mer- 
its of every such dispute shall be instituted and completed 
before a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted. 

* * * 

The other suggestions, — the provision for full public in- 
vestigation and assessment of industrial disputes, — I now 
very earnestly renew. 

* * * 

The country can not and should not consent to remain 
any longer exposed to profound industrial disturbances for 
lack ®f additional means of arbitration and conciliation which 
the Congress can easily and promptly supply. 

* * * 

This is a program of regulation, prevention, and pdminis- 

1 Extract from the fourth annual address of President WiUon to 
Congress, December 5, 1916. 



214 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

trative efficiency which argues its own case in the mere 
statement of it. 

* * * 

I would hesitate to recommend, and I dare say the Con- 
gress would hesitate to act upon the suggestion should I 
make it, that any man in any occupation should be obliged 
by law to continue in an employment which he desired to 
leave. To pass a law which forbade or prevented the indi- 
vidual workman to leave his work before receiving the ap- 
proval of society in doing so would be to adopt a new prin- 
ciple into our jurisprudence which I take it for granted we 
are not prepared to introduce. But the proposal that the 
operation of the railways of the country shall not be stopped 
or interrupted by the concerted action of organized bodies 
of men until a public investigation shall have been instituted 
which shall make the whole question at issue plain for the 
judgment of the opinion of the nation is not to propose any 
such principle. It is based upon the very different principle 
that the concerted action of powerful bodies of men shall 
not be permitted to stop the industrial processes of the na- 
tion, at any rate before the nation shall have had an oppor- 
tunity to acquaint itself with the merits of the case as be- 
tween employee and employer, time to form its opinion up- 
on an impartial statement of the merits, and opportunity to 
consider all practicable means of conciliation or arbitration. 
I can see nothing in that proposition but the justifiable safe- 
guarding by society of the necessary processes of its very 
life. There is nothing arbitrary or unjust in it unless it be 
arbitrarily and unjustly done. It can and should be done 
with a full and scrupulous regard for the interests and lib- 
erties of all concerned as well as for the permanent interests 
of society itself. 

GOVERNMENT PREVENTION OF RAILROAD 
STRIKES' 

The American people awakened recently to find them- 
selves threatened with an interruption of transportation 
throughout the country. This imminent danger aroused for 

^ Bj Samuel O. Dunn, Editor Railway Age Gazette, in Scribner's 
Magazine, 61:307-14. March, 1917. 



I 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 215 

the first time in a majority a realization of the extent to 
which the public welfare has come to depend on the contin- 
uous maintenance of railway service. To ward off the blow 
Congress hastily passed the Adamson "basic eight-hour day" 
act. The railways promptly took this measure into court to 
test its constitutionality. Threats of a strike were then 
heard again. 

President Wilson recommended last August the passage, 
along with the Adamson bill, of a measure to prohibit strikes 
or lockouts in train service until after public investigation of 
the matters in controversy. He renewed this recommenda- 
tion on the reassembling of Congress in December. The 
need for additional legislation dealing with labor controver- 
sies on railways has been made so manifest recently that 
before this article appears the President's recommendation 
may have been acted on. The problem which gives rise to 
these controversies is not, however, one which legislation 
passed to meet a single emergency is likely to solve. It is 
a very difficult problem — a problem at once important, com- 
plex, and unique. It is a problem which has arisen inevit- 
ably, first, from the economic developments of our time, 
and, second, from the nature of the railway industry. 

The changes in economic conditions which have taken 
place within recent years have made strikes and lockouts in 
many lines of business matters of serious consequence to 
the public. When the largest concern represented a capital 
of only a few hundred thousands of dollars, and employed 
only a few hundred workmen, when employers dealt only 
with their own employees, and employees only with their 
own employers, a lockout or strike might work great hard- 
ship or ruin to those directly involved; but the public hardly 
felt it. There was then little occasion for government in- 
terference except to prevent and punish violence and other 
ordinary infractions of the criminal law. 

Within our time, however, there have been great in- 
creases in the size of business concerns. Single corporations 
now represent hundreds of millions of capital, and employ 
many thousands of men. Confronted by these huge aggre- 
gations of capital, employees have organized on a grand 
scale to pit against the large bargaining power of the great 
corporations the collective bargaining power of thousands 
of workers. From local bodies, labor unions have developed 



2i6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

into national and international organizations. Individual 
corporations, even though very large, have found themselves 
at a disadvantage when dealing single-handed with labor 
unions national or international in their scope. Therefore, 
in many industries labor unions national in their scope are 
now confronted with employers* associations national in 
their extent. Thus have combinations of capital and of 
labor acted and reacted on each other until there has de- 
veloped a situation the significance of which, in relation to 
the public welfare, can hardly be exaggerated. 

In no other field, however, is organized capital con- 
fronted with organizations of labor at once so powerful, so 
militant, and possessed of so many strategic advantages as 
in the railway field. The principal of these are the four 
brotherhoods of employees in train service — the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railway Conductors, 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 
and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. For many 
years each of these organizations acted alone; and it was 
the policy of each to deal with only one or a few railways 
at a time. In not a few cases failure to secure satisfactory 
settlements resulted in strikes of the members of single 
brotherhoods on single roads. Perhaps the most famous and 
bitterly fought of these was that of the locomotive engineers 
on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy in 1888. The great- 
est strike in the history of American railways, that carried 
on by the American Railway Union in 1894, grew out of a 
boycott this union had declared against Pullman cars be- 
cause the employees of the Pullman Company were on strike. 
But the American Railway Union soon went out of exis- 
tence; and the course of the leading brotherhoods continued 
to be the same as before. 

About ten years ago, however, radical changes began to 
be introduced in their policy. The individual brotherhoods 
commenced to make identical demands upon, and to insist 
upon carrying on negotiations with, the representatives of 
groups of railways operating throughout the three great sec- 
tions of the country — East, South, and West. Then the 
other trainmen began to join with the conductors, and the 
firemen with the engineers, in making demands upon the 
railways of entire sections. Finally, in 1916, the engineers. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 217 

firemen, conductors, and other trainmen of the whole coun- 
try united in making demands upon all the railways. This, 
it may develop, was not the climax of the railway labor 
movement. It is reported that the employees in train service 
have been trying to get all the other organized railway em- 
ployees, especially the mechanics and other shopmen, to join 
with them in their struggles. 

Every step taken by the employees has been countered 
by the managements. Committees representing groups of 
railways succeeded representatives of the individual manage- 
ments in labor negotiations. Finally, in 1916, for the first 
time in history, a committee representing the managements 
of all the railways confronted committees representing men 
employed on all. This was followed by another event with- 
out a precedent — a meeting in Washington, D. C, of the 
heads of all the leading transportation systems to decide 
what should be the final stand of all in a labor controversy. 

There will be no dissent from the proposition that revo- 
lutionary changes in economic and industrial conditions 
Avhich powerfully affect the interests of the public may de- 
mand correspondingly radical alterations in public policy. 
Likewise, it will hardly be controverted that the growth of 
great combinations of capital and of huge organizations of 
labor largely to carry on gigantic struggles with each other 
has worked an economic and industrial revolution. Finally, 
to most persons it must be plain that the part of this revo- 
lution which has occurred in the railway industry is of pe- 
culiar importance. A nation-wide lockout or strike in any 
of our large industries would soon become a serious matter 
for the public. The complete closing down of the steel 
mills would speedily affect all connected with branches of 
industry which sell them raw materials or buy their finished 
products, and would soon threaten the general prosperity. 
Much more speedy, serious, and universal would be the con- 
sequences of a general closing down of the plants used to 
produce some essential of industrial activity, which is also 
a necessity of life, such as coal. But the most immediately 
and universally disastrous of all industrial catastrophes 
would be a nation-wide strike in railway-train service. Such 
a strike would at once throw all railway employees out of 
work. By stopping the movement of coal and raw mate- 



2i8 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

rials, it would swiftly shut down every mine and factory. 
The crops of the farmers would soon be rotting upon the 
ground. Depriving merchants of the means of renewing their 
stocks, it would soon close every wholesale house and re- 
tail store. The people of our great cities are dependent 
from day to day for their food upon the supplies which the 
railways bring to them from all parts of the land; and they 
would all find themselves threatened with starvation. As a 
nation-wide strike in railway-train service would bring all 
industry and commerce to a stop, it would soon have the 
effects of a general strike of all workers such as is advo- 
cated by the syndicalists. 

Until recently, it was replied to such statements that the 
circumstance that the movements carried on by railway em- 
ployees were growing more and more extensive did not give 
ground for fears of general tie-ups of the railways, or justify 
coercive action by the government to prevent them. The 
ablest report on a labor controversy ever made in this country 
was that rendered by the board which arbitrated the wage dis- 
pute between the eastern railways and their locomotive en- 
gineers in 1912. This board, of which President C. R. Van 
Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, was chairman was pro- 
foundly impressed by the danger of extensive railway strikes. 
It, therefore, advocated the creation of state and federal wage 
commissions to determine the wages and conditions of work 
of railway employees. The representative of labor on the board 
(P. H. Morrissey, formerly president of the Brotherhood of 
Railroad Trainmen) vigorously dissented. "The developing 
power of the (labor) organizations through concerted methods 
carries with it increasing responsibilities which the organiza- 
tions and their leaders recognize," said he. "They well know 
the value of public approval of their activities and are equally 
conscious of its disapproval. To intimate that the transporta- 
tion of the country can be brought to a standstill at the whirn 
or caprice of a small group of men is not a fair statement of 
the manner by which the powers of these organizations are ex- 
ercised." There was a strike of the emploj'ces of all the rail- 
ways of France in 1910, and the majority of the arbitration 
board described this as an example of what might occur in the 
United States. Mr. Morrissey denied the analogy. "The im- 
mediate cause of the French strike," said he, "was the refusal 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 219 

of the railway officials to confer with the representatives of 
their employees in order that there might not even be a dis- 
cussion of the employees' demands. There is no such condition 
in America." 

Every argument made by Mr. Morrissey was speedily re- 
futed by the irresistible logic of events. In 1914 the engineers 
and firemen of the railways west of the Mississippi River made 
demands upon the companies, and the companies made counter- 
demands. The railways offered to arbitrate the demands of 
both sides. The employees consented to arbitration of their 
own demands, but refused to arbitrate those of the railways. 
The order was issued for a strike. The war in Europe had 
just begun. It was a time of industrial and financial crisis. 
President Wilson intervened, finally appealing to the managers 
of the railways on patriotic grounds to withdraw their de- 
mands, and arbitrate only those of the employees. Only the 
compliance of the managers averted the disaster. 

Still more impressive and conclusive was the lesson taught 
last year. In this instance not only did all the locomotive en- 
gineers, conductors, firemen, and other trainmen for the first 
time join in making demands on all the railways, but they re- 
fused to submit to arbitration in any form any of the points 
in controversy, whether raised by themselves or by the roads. 
President Wilson asked the railways to accede to the demand 
for a "basic eight-hour day" and leave other matters in issue 
to subsequent determination. When the labor leaders heard 
that the railways had decided to reject the President's plan, 
they immediately issued an order for a nation-wide strike; and 
it was averted only by the hurried passage of the Adamson 
act. The order for a strike was withdrawn only thirty-six 
hours before the strike was to have begun. It was clear that 
labor leaders who would issue an order for a nation-wide rail- 
way strike in this manner and under these conditions would 
put such an order into effect. It was clear that railway man- 
agers who would meet the issue unflinchingly, as the railway 
managers did in this instance, would let a strike come. It was 
evident, therefore, that the time had arrived for a change in 
our methods of dealing with labor disputes on railways. 

There has been frequent government intervention in labor 
disputes on railways in this country for some years. The laws 
under which it has occurred have applied only to disputes be- 



220 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

tween the carriers and their employees in train service. The 
Erdman act, passed by Congress in 1898, provided for media- 
tion by the Commissioner of Labor and the Chairman of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, and, if this failed, for ar- 
bitration by a board composed of one representative of the rail- 
ways, one representative of labor, and one member chosen by 
these two or by the mediators. The Newlands act, passed sub- 
sequently at the joint request of the railways and the labor 
brotherhoods, created a permanent mediation and conciliation 
board of three members, and provided for arbitration, if media- 
tion failed, by a board of six members — two representing the 
railways, two the employees, and two supposedly impartial. 
The Newlands act, like the Erdman act, left it optional with 
the parties whether they should accept mediation or arbitra- 
tion. So long as the parties were disposed to make settle- 
ments through mediation, or to arbitrate, this system was use- 
ful as a preventive of strikes. When, however, in 1916 the em- 
ployees announced that they would not arbitrate, and stuck to 
it, the system of voluntary arbitration broke down. 

Government ownership is urged by some as a specific for all 
the ills which develop under private ownership; and recently 
it often has been suggested as the only sure preventive of 
strikes. But strikes have not been unknown on state railways. 
The locomotive engineers and firemen of the state railways of 
Victoria struck in 1903. A serious strike occurred on the state 
railways of Hungary in 1904. The employees of the state rail- 
ways of Italy, by threatening to strike, succeeded in 1905 in 
getting rid of an objectionable general manager. The em- 
ployees of the two state railways of France went on strike with 
the employees of all the private railways in 1910. There even 
has been a strike already on the railway which the govern- 
ment of the United States is building in Alaska; and it was 
successful, the strikers getting practically all they demanded. 

Under either government or private ownership differences 
are sure to arise from time to time between the management of 
the railways and the employees. In case the differences become 
serious, and strikes are permitted, the emploj'ees, especially if 
they are organized, are likely to strike. The Prussian govern- 
ment, true to its character in other respects, makes strikes on 
the railways it owns and operates practically impossible by pro- 
hibiting the employees from belonging to unions or from hold- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 221 

ing meetings except such as are attended and presided over 
by their officers. The employees of the French railways, state 
and private, on the very day the general strike was declared in 
1910, were mobilized under the military laws and ordered to 
the colors for three weeks' training. The duty to which they 
were assigned was that of maintaining and operating the rail- 
ways in the usual manner. It will be noted that this strike was 
on both state and private railways, and that precisely the same 
measure was used on both to break it. Similar methods were 
employed in breaking the strike on the Hungarian state rail- 
ways in 1904. 

It would be neither practicable nor desirable for the govern- 
ment of the United States to interfere, after the Prussian man- 
ner, with the organization of railway employees. Nor would 
it be possible in this country, at least in time of peace, to 
-break a strike bj^ mobilizing railway employees, as was done in 
France and Hungary. At the same time, our recent experience 
demonstrated that we could not reasonably hope much longer to 
avoid nation-wide railway strikes unless some form of coercion 
was adopted by the federal government to prevent them. 

Legislation has been passed in many countries for the pre- 
vention of strikes and lockouts, not only on railways and other 
public utilities, but in industries of almost every kind. Until 
a comparatively few years ago proposals for the arbitration of 
labor disputes usually originated with labor and were often 
rejected by capital. Consequently, at that time labor leaders, 
seconded by most social reformers, advocated legislation mak- 
ing arbitration compulsory. Within the last quarter-century 
this system has been tried in several countries, especially New 
Zealand and Australia. The original compulsory arbitration act 
of New Zealand was passed in 1894. District boards of con- 
ciliation, consisting of both employers and employees, and a 
court of arbitration, consisting of a president, one representa- 
tive of the unions of employers and one representative of the 
unions of workers, were created. Reports as to the operation 
of this system are practically unanimous. From 1894 to 1900 
New Zealand was prosperous; the awards of the arbitration 
court usually resulted in substantial advances in wages; and 
during this time compulsory arbitration was in high favor with 
labor, and there were no strikes. During the next six j^ears the 
country was less prosperous, the awards began to result in small 



222 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

increases in wages or none, and, as one author says, "labor be- 
came less satisfied, and capital less distrustful," but there were 
still no strikes. 

Between 1906 and 1912, when labor was "in open revolt and 
capital endeavored to uphold the act," there were sixty-three 
strikes. The first of these was declared by the employees of 
the street railways of Auckland in November, 1906, showing 
that the law was no more effective as applied to public utilities 
and their employees than as applied to other employers and 
their employees. There was provided a maximum fine of two 
thousand five hundred dollars for any employer and one of 
fifty dollars for any employee who should violate the arbitra- 
tion law; and in this case both the company and the striking 
employees were fined. But from that time strikes continued 
to occur in various lines of industry in spite of the fact that 
fines continued to be imposed. In 1909 the law was amended. 
Three permanent commissioners of conciliation are now ap- 
pointed by the government. In case of a labor dispute one of 
them goes to the scene and tries to settle it. If unsuccessful he 
organizes a council of conciliation which includes two or more 
representatives of both parties. Every dispute must now be 
referred to such a council before it can be carried to the ar- 
bitration court. This system is said to work better than the 
earlier one; but the record shows that while compulsory ar- 
bitration in New Zealand has prevented lockouts, it has not 
prevented strikes. It has been found possible under it always 
to enforce awards against employers, but not always against 
employees. In other words, the system is effectively compul- 
sory only in its application to employers. 

The experience of Australia has been similar. The Aus- 
tralian commonwealth has a compulsory arbitration act which 
has been in effect for twelve years, and the different states have 
tried various similar schemes. They, also, have prevented lock- 
outs, but not strikes. Norway formerly had a compulsory ar- 
bitration law, but opposition to it by both capital and labor 
caused its repeal. After a general strike in 1916, which itself 
followed a strike of four months in the mining and iron and • 
steel industries, another compulsory arbitration law was enac- 
ted to remain in effect during the continuance of the present 
war in Europe. 



1 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 223 

A measure similar in purpose to those mentioned, but nar- 
rower in its scope, and differing widely from them in the means 
it provides for accomplishing its ends, is the Industrial Disputes 
Investigation Act of Canada. This law was passed in 1907 as a 
result of a serious and protracted coal-mine strike in one of the 
Western provinces. It applies to railroads and other public util- 
ities, to mines of all kinds, and, by a recent amendment, to all 
industries engaged in productive operations of any kind for 
military purposes. It prohibits, under heavy penalties, a lockout 
or a strike until the matters in dispute shall have been referred 
to a conciliation and investigation board. The party about to 
lockout or strike must give notice to the Dominion government, 
together with a statement regarding the matters in controversy. 
The Minister of Labor calls on each party to name a member 
of the board. These two are given opportunity to name a third, 
who becomes chairman. If they fail to do so, he is appointed 
by the Minister of Labor. The primary function of this board 
is that of mediation. If it fails to effect a settlement, it takes 
testimony and prepares a report, which is made public, sum- 
marizing the evidence and giving its conclusions as to the bases 
on which a settlement should be made. 

This measure differs from those establishing compulsory ar- 
bitration in not requiring obedience to the awards made under 
it. Like them, it has not succeeded entirely in preventing 
strikes. But almost always in cases of industrial disputes 
its provisions have been obeyed, with resulting peaceful settle- 
ments in a large majority of cases. Of eightj'-five disputes on 
railways which have been investigated under its provisions, all 
but seven have been settled without strikes or lockouts; and, as 
already indicated, the Canadian law applies to disputes affecting 
any class of railway employees, not merely those in train ser- 
vice. 

Our experience in the United States has shown that a sys- 
tem which leaves mediation and arbitration of labor disputes on 
railways entirely optional with the parties cannot be relied on to 
safeguard the interests of the public. At the same time the ex- 
perience of other countries with compulsory arbitration shows 
that while it is attractive in theory it often proves unworkable 
in practice. If employees are determined not to carry out the 
terms of an award, there appears to be, at least in democratic 



224 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

countries, no practical waj^ of compelling them to do so. Fines 
have proved ineffectual, and provisions for imprisonment prob- 
ably could not be enforced. 

For the present it seems best to take in the United States a 
middle course between the policy of entirely voluntary arbitra- 
tion and that of compulsory arbitration. In other words, we 
should apply to labor controversies threatening to interrupt rail- 
way service a system modelled after that of Canada. The most 
important feature of that system is that it does not make lock- 
outs and strikes illegal and arbitration and acceptance of the 
awards compulsory, but that it merely makes strikes and lock- 
outs illegal if declared before there has been a public investiga- 
tion of and report on the matters in controversy. 

Most of the leaders of organized labor formerly advocated 
compulsory arbitration. At present, most of the labor leaders 
of this country oppose the placing of any restriction on the 
right of railway employees to strike. They declare that merely 
to prohibit strikes until there can be public investigation is to 
subject railway employees to "involuntary servitude." But such 
a system does not involve any abridgment of the freedom of the 
individual. It merely imposes a Hmitation on the action of em- 
ployees collectively; and no principle of economics or juris- 
prudence is more fundamental than that it may be the right and 
duty of society to impose restrictions on the collective action of 
large numbers of men which it would be wrong to impose on 
the action of individuals. 

"Involuntary servitude" is merely a euphemism for slavery. 
It is obvious that legislation prohibiting strikes until after public 
investigation does not establish slavery. Therefore, we must 
look beyond this argument for the true reason why labor lead- 
ers are so strongly opposed to any restriction of the right of 
railway employees to strike. The true reason probably is that 
they fear such restriction will result in weakening the bargain- 
ing power of the labor brotherhoods. As already stated, the 
labor situation on railways and other public utilities is unique, 
and this point calls attention to one of the most important con- 
ditions which make it unique. In every other class of industry 
employers have the same legal power and moral right to seize 
upon favorable opportunities to force through reductions in 
wages and changes in conditions of employment by resort to 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 225 

the lockout that the employees have to seize upon favorable op- 
portunities to force through increases in wages and changes in 
conditions of employment by resort to the strike. Therefore, 
in any other industry in which both employers and employees 
are strongly organized there may be a substantial parity in their 
collective bargaining power. In the case of railways and other 
public utilities, on the other hand, the employer may not legally 
suspend operation. This means, as to most classes of em- 
ployees, that he cannot use the lockout. In consequence, if the 
employees of railways and other public utilities are permitted to 
strike whenever they please, this gives them in collective bar- 
gaining an important advantage. The employees in railway- 
train service in this country have used this advantage often and 
skilfully. It is mainly owing to this that they have got their 
wages on a basis higher than those of any other workingmen 
in the world. A law absolutely prohibiting strikes in train ser- 
vice, if enforced, would largely destroy the advantage in bar- 
gaining possessed by these employees. A law merely prohibit- 
ing strikes until after public investigation will greatly impair it. 
While the investigation is going on the most opportune time for 
putting a strike into effect is likely to pass, and the ardor of 
the men for it is likely to cool. This will be partly because of 
the delay involved. It will also be partly because of the fact 
that the public will be informed as to the matters in con- 
troversy; that it will have before it the recommendations of an 
impartial board as to a settlement; and that it probably will 
strongly oppose and condemn any move to bring about a strike 
in disregard of these recommendations. 

From the standpoint of the leaders of organized labor these 
are strong arguments against imposing limitations on the right 
to strike. From the standpoint of the public they are just as 
strong arguments in favor of imposing such limitations. It is 
not to the interest of the public that the employees of railways 
and other public utilities shall possess a disproportionate power 
in bargaining with their employers. The profits of public util- 
ities, unlike those of other concerns, are controlled by public 
authorities to prevent them from becoming excessive. Since 
such concerns are required to do business on a comparatively 
narrow margin of profit, every considerable change in the wages 
they pay must affect the rates they charge the public or the ser- 



226 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

vice they render to it. It is hardly necessary to add that it is 
to the pubHc interest to interpose all reasonable obstacles in the 
way of strikes. 

However, before a system of compulsory investigation of in- 
dustrial disputes can be made to accomplish the greatest good, 
it will have to be given some features which have not yet been 
introduced into it. Its most important object should be to pre- 
vent strikes; but it should also aim to secure settlements of dis- 
putes which will be just to all, including the public. But what 
is just cannot well be determined by such temporary boards as 
have been organized under the Industrial Disputes Act in Can- 
ada and under the Erdman and Newlands acts in this country. 
The determination of the conditions of emplo}'ment and the 
wages that should prevail on railwaj^s is as technical, and al- 
most as important, a matter as the determination of railway 
rates. Therefore the investigation of labor disputes on railways, 
like the regulation of rates, should be delegated to some body 
which, from the training and experience of its members, will be 
skilful in getting at the true facts and conditions, and in making 
sound and fair recommendations as to settlements. The body 
to which this function logically should be delegated is that 
which already regulates railway rates and operation, viz., the 
Interstate Commerce Commission. In any event, the connection 
between the body that investigates labor disputes and the body 
that regulates rates and operation should be close. 

Probably the best alternative to turning the entire matter 
over to the Interstate Commerce Commission would be to pro- 
vide that each investigating board should be composed of the 
following: (i) A permanent chairman, who preferably should 
be an army officer, and who, because of the permanency of his 
tenure, would in time become an expert on labor controversies; 
(2) a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, to be 
designated for the occasion, by that Commission, who would 
bring into the deliberations a broad knowledge of the railway 
situation; (3) a member of the Federal Trade Commission, to 
be designated for the occasion by the Trade Commission, who 
would bring into the deliberations a broad knowledge of the 
general business situation; (4) a representative of the railways, 
who would bring expert knowledge of railway matters and ex- 
press the railway point of view; (5) a representative of the em- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 227 

ployees, who would bring expert knowledge of the labor situa- 
tion and express the labor point of view. 

The Erdman and Newlands acts provided for arbitration 
boards composed of equal numbers of representatives of the 
railways, of the employees, and of the public. It has been justly 
complained of these boards that the minoi^ty of their members 
representing the public were impartial but not expert, while the 
majority, representing the employers and employees, were ex- 
pert but not impartial. Either the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission or boards organized according to the alternative plan 
suggested above would largely obviate these objections. 

As important as it is that the public should have railway 
labor controversies elucidated for it by an expert and impartial 
board, the service which such a board could render in influenc- 
ing the attitudes of the immediate parties themselves might be 
more important. In order that this service might be rendered 
in the most efficient manner, the law should provide that no 
strike vote might be taken until the investigating board had 
made its report, and that with every strike ballot sent out there 
should be enclosed a brief statement, prepared by the board it- 
self, setting forth its conclusions and recommendations and the 
reasons for them. It might be well to provide also that strike 
votes must be by ballot, so that no employee may be prevented 
from expressing his true sentiments. The question whether the 
railway transportation of the United States shall be interrupted 
is a more important one than most of those voted on at political 
elections, and therefore no pains should be spared to insure that 
it will be voted on intelligently and without duress. 

The insuperable obstacle that has been encountered in the 
administration of compulsory arbitration laws has been that of 
getting employees to carry out awards. \\^ill equal difficulty be 
met in the administration of a well-devised scheme of compul- 
sory investigation? Both consideration of the conditions and 
the experience of Canada indicate that it will not be. The only 
prohibitions of such a system are those appl3dng to strikes and 
lockouts previous to investigation. There is no reason why the 
penalties applicable, on the one hand, to the railway companies 
and their officers, and, on the other hand to the officers of the 
unions, to their individual members, and to the union, them- 
selves and their properties and funds, cannot be made heavy 



228 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

enough, if enforced, to secure obedience to the law; and it 
should be much easier to secure enforcement of penalties for 
violations of such prohibitions than to secure the enforcement 
of penalties against men who have struck rather than carry out 
an award already made and which they regard as unjust. There 
is no "involuntary servitude" in the former proceeding. The 
latter savors strongly of it. 

It is not probable that a plan such as that outlined would 
secure entirely equitable settlements of railway labor contro- 
versies; but it would secure much fairer settlements than any 
plan tried heretofore. It is not probable that it would entirely 
prevent strikes in railway-train service, but it would almost cer- 
tainly prevent nation-wide tie-ups while strictly limiting the 
number affecting smaller areas. Should a well-devised scheme 
of compulsory investigation of railway labor disputes fail, public 
sentiment might be educated by its operation and irritated by its 
failure to a point where it would cause the enactment and en- 
forcement of a law entirely prohibiting railway strikes. 

THE CANADIAN INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 
ACT* 

Twenty-two years ago trafBc upon some of our largest 
western railways was interrupted or suspended by a wide- 
spread and protracted strike. Business was seriously af- 
fected, millions of dollars were lost by the disputants and 
the general public, and mob violence for a time threatened 
the very foundations of government. Finally order was re- 
stored and necessary intercourse was resumed under the pro- 
tection of federal troops. A United States strike commis- 
sion was appointed to investigate this disturbance and to ad- 
vise measures for preventing a similar calamity in the future. 
This commission recommended that lockouts and strikes 
upon railways engaged in interstate commerce be prohibited 
by law until the grievances at issue had been officially in- 
vestigated, and the public had been informed why its own 
rights and interests were to be so seriously violated. The 
present year a strike that promised to be even more extended 

1 Victor S. Clark. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 
7:10-18. January, 1917. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 229 

and disastrous than the one in 1894 impended. Congress had 
not yet provided an adequate remedy for such a crisis, and 
the lessons of the previous episode had been forgotten. 
Therefore again, twenty-two years after the strike commis- 
sion of 1894 reported, the President of the United States 
was called upon to protect vital national interests from in- 
dustrial warfare; and he repeated in his appeal for aid to 
Congress the recommendation made by President Cleveland 
almost a generation ago, that lockouts and strikes upon rail- 
ways engaged in interstate commerce be made illegal, unless 
preceded by a public investigation. 

Meantime Canada, whose industrial conditions are almost 
identical with our own, had grappled resolutely with this 
problem. Ten years ago a bitter and prolonged coal strike 
in Alberta deprived the western provinces of fuel; so that as 
winter approached, prairie settlers could not heat their 
homes, public schools were closed, and industries using 
steam power curtailed or suspended operations. What the 
anthracite coal strike of 1902 was to our eastern states, the 
strike of 1906 was to the people of the Canadian northwest. 
This private disagreement of a small group of employers 
and workmen so threatened the welfare of that entire region 
that the Dominion government was forced to intervene; and 
partly by moral suasion and partly by the power of public 
opinion it finally compelled a settlement of the dispute and 
a resumption of coal production. 

Unlike the United States after the great railway strike of 
1894 and the anthracite strike of 1902, Canada at once took 
positive steps to prevent or control similar crises in the 
future. In recommending a law for this purpose, Mr Mac- 
kenzie King, then deputy minister of labor of the Dominion, 
thus stated the guiding principle of such legislation: "In any 
civilized community private rights should cease when they 
become public wrongs." I should like to make that state- 
ment the text of my remarks; for it defines the only ground 
upon which the public is entitled to interfere in a mandatory 
way with the negotiations between workers and employers. 
The measure Canada adopted went beyond voluntary con- 
ciliation and arbitration laws, which were already on the 
statute books. Such laws had been enacted also in the 
United States, and in both countries they had been of ser- 



230 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

vice; but when most needed they had failed in Canada as 
completely and as conspicuously as they failed in our own 
great railway dispute last summer. 

On the other hand, the government was not ready to 
adopt compulsory arbitration, such as is in force in New 
Zealand and Australia. Let me repeat that the Canadian 
industrial disputes act is not a compulsory arbitration law, 
because that erroneous opinion seems to prevail widely in 
this country. Canada's purpose was not to compel the parties 
to a dispute to accept a government decision, nor to regu- 
late by official mandate the working conditions of any class 
of labor; its purpose was limited to forbidding lockouts and 
strikes that directly affect the public welfare until their 
cr.uses have been authoritatively investigated, and have been 
made known to the people who v/ill suffer through them. 
In connection Avith this investigation, the law provides ma- 
chinery not essentially different from that established by 
earlier conciliation acts in both Canada and the United 
States, to assist the disputing parties in a voluntary and 
friendly settlement of their difficulties. The conciliation fea- 
tures of the act of 1907 were not novel, but were mainly a re- 
enactment of previous statutes; while the compulsory in- 
vestigation features v/ere at that time practically new in 
American labor legislation. 

The jurisdiction of the law extends only to industries that 
serve immediately the general public. These embrace rail- 
ways and transportation lines, yard and wharf labor, tele- 
graphs and telephones, power, light and traction companies, 
and mines. Workers and employers in any industries not 
directly included within the act may by mutual agreement 
apply to have their difficulties investigated and adjusted 
under the same law; but this is merely using its machinery 
for purposes called for by any conciliation statute. Recently 
as a v;ar measure the jurisdiction of the act has been ex- 
tended to munition workers and others employed in war 
industries; but this is a temporary expedient in an extra- 
ordinary emergency, to be justified on the same grounds as 
the original law. In a word, the operation of the act is con- 
fined to industries where a cessation of labor would cause 
more damage to the general public than any prospective ad- 
vantage to either party in the dispute would compensate. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 231 

The law attempts to apply the principle of the greatest good 
to the greatest number. 

No change in the labor conditions of these industries can 
be made without thirty days notice. If either employers or 
workers object to a proposed change they may apply to the 
federal Minister of Labor for a board of investigation and 
conciliation, showing that a lockout or strike will occur un- 
less the points at issue are settled. Thereupon the minister, 
after assuring himself of these facts, appoints a board for 
that particular dispute. This board consists of three mem- 
bers, one of w"hom is nominated by the workers and another 
by the employers. These two select the third member, or if 
they fail to agree the Minister of Labor appoints him. The 
third member is chairman of the board. Please note that 
the board is not a judicial body or a non-partisan umpire, 
but an investigating and conciliating agency containing 
representatives of both sides of the controversj^. However, 
no person having a direct money interest in the business 
affected by the dispute is eligible to membership. 

Wide latitude is given the boards in their method of con- 
ducting an investigation and bringing the opposing parties 
to an agreement. They have the powers of a court to sum- 
mon Avitnesses, to require the production of books and pa- 
pers, and to take testimony under oath. They may person- 
ally inspect works and factories concerned in a dispute and 
interrogate employees. Most cases referred to boards have 
been settled without a disagreement. But if the parties can- 
not come to terms the board reports its findings, which need 
not be unanimous, but may consist of a majority and a 
minority report, or conceivably of three individual reports. 
These contain a statement of the grounds of the dispute, an 
opinion as to the justice of the respective claims presented, 
and recommendations for a settlement of the points in con- 
troversy. 

Pending the investigation a lockout or strike is prohibited 
under penalties ranging $100 to $1000 a day for lockouts, 
$10 to $50 a day for striking, and $50 to $1000 for inciting or 
aiding an unlawful lockout or strike. But after a board 
has reported, employers may lock out their employees, or 
workers may strike, if they wish to do so. The only excep- 
tion to this rule is when both parties have previously signed 



232 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

a formal agreement to abide by the decision of the board. 
In that case they can not break their contract. 

This summary review of the main provisions of the act 
necessarily omits many details that are important in its prac- 
tical working, but that can not be discussed in a short paper 
without obscuring the law's leading principles. The two fea- 
tures that chiefly distinguish the industrial disputes act of 
Canada from the Erdman law and the Newlands law in our 
own country, are the compulsory investigation of certain la- 
bor controversies and the prohibition of lockouts and strikes 
pending that investigation. 

More than nine years have elapsed since Canada placed 
these provisions on the statute books. Up to the i8th of 
last month 212 disputes had been referred for adjustment 
under the law, and 21 strikes had occurred; so that about nine 
out of ten disputes were settled without stopping work. Of 
these 212 disputes, 167 were reported on by board or settled 
through their mediation, and the others were terminated be- 
fore boards were organized or while the disputes were still 
under investigation. 

If we classify these references by industries, during the first 
nine years of the act seventy-five boards were appointed in rail- 
way disputes, and in all but six of these strikes were ended or 
averted. City traction lines were involved in twenty-one refer- 
ences, only two of which terminated in a strike. Only one out 
of nine cases of labor difficulty upon municipal works caused 
a stoppage of labor. Eleven shipping disputes, two upon tele- 
graph lines, two upon telephone lines, and three affecting light 
and power companies, were settled without a single interrup- 
tion of employment. On the other hand, out of forty-three dis- 
putes in coal mines, six resulted in strikes; while in metal min- 
ing only eight out of thirteen controversies referred to boards 
were amicably adjusted by them. The act has not been so suc- 
cessful in mining as in transportation and other public service 
industries, partly because popular sentiment is less intelligently 
informed and less actively interested in mining controversies 
than in those more immediately affecting the general welfare. 
Moreover the figures quoted, which are taken from official re- 
ports, must be qualified^ by the fact that labor difficulties not 
here recorded have occasionally ensued where the application 
of the act has been doubtful, or after a board has reported and 
its findings have been accepted by one or both of the parties. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 233 

Furthermore, a mere enumeration of disputes, without re- 
gard to the relative importance o£ individual controversies, 
gives little information as to the real service of the act. One 
big dispute ending in a strike may outweigh many little diffi- 
culties settled amicably. Statistics can not measure the respec- 
tive importance of averted and actual strikes, because the dura- 
tion and extent of a potential strike are matters of conjecture. 
As a rule, however, the larger the threatened disturbance, 
the harder it is to handle; and it is in the field of big 
strikes that legislation of this character usually makes the 
poorest shovi^ing. Probably the number of employees involved 
in strikes that have occurred in Canada either in violation of the 
industrial disputes act, or legally under that act because work- 
ers refused to accept the findings of a board, averages larger in 
each difficulty than the number involved in disputes that were 
successfully adjusted. Nevertheless, no great strike affecting 
immediateh- the public welfare has paralj'zed the industries of 
Canada since this law went into operation. 

Illegal strikes are of two kinds, those started in ignorance 
of the law or in doubt as to its application, and those in clear 
defiance of government intervention. The few strikes that have 
occurred in open contempt of the act were not in disputes where 
the outside public had much interest at stake, and usually were 
to be explained by some local condition that prompted irre- 
sponsible men to impulsive action. Some years ago the United 
Mine Workers in western Canada struck in violation of the law, 
but later they themselves applied for a board, which was 
granted and settled the difficulty. Similar strikes have more re- 
cently occurred among coal miners in Nova Scotia, where there 
is a long standing jurisdictional fight between a union that 
favors the act and one that opposes it. In case of such viola- 
tions the government maj^ prosecute the offenders ; but in prac- 
tice it generally leaves the enforcement of the penal features of 
the law to the aggrieved parties in the dispute. As might be an- 
ticipated, neither employers nor workingmen often care to as- 
sume the trouble and expense of court proceedings. One em- 
ployer has been fined for an illegal lockout; a few union offi- 
cials have been fined for inciting strikes; and an agent of the 
United Mine Workers has been convicted both in the lower 
courts and on appeal for paying strike relief to members of the 
union who had violated the law. However, no effort has been 
made in the past to punish a large body of men for striking. 



234 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

This raises the question of the value of the penal provisions 
of the law. It is argued that if the act does not put strikers in 
jail and subject offending employers to heavy fines, these pro- 
visions are useless. But even though violations are seldom 
prosecuted, neither strikers nor employers dare to defy the law 
of the land in disputes prominently before the public and affect- 
ing the prosperity and comfort of a large body of citizens. By 
doing so they would put a powerful weapon in the hands of 
their opponents, and they would fatally prejudice their case in 
the high court of public opinion. 

The original statute was amended in 1910, and a bill revising 
and extending its provisions has been prepared and will prob- 
ably be brought before Parliament at the close of the war. Both 
the amendments already made and the proposed revision are 
designed chiefly to simplify and expedite procedure and to 
hasten decisions. Another projected change would permit 
municipalities to apply for boards in disputes that threaten the 
welfare of their citizens, though the municipal government is 
not a party to the controversy. It is also proposed that the 
government, where requested by both parties, shall register col- 
lective bargains or industrial agreements entered into by work- 
ers and employers, whether made through a board of investiga- 
tion and conciliation or without government mediation, and that 
when so recorded these agreements shall be enforceable by law. 
The new bill also provides that boards may be reconvened for 
the purpose of interpreting their awards. Recently when a seri- 
ous strike seemed imminent on the Canadian Pacific railway an- 
other defect in the present law appeared. This dispute was in- 
vestigated and reported upon by a board of investigation and 
conciliation in 19 14, just as the war broke out. The emplo5-ees 
refused to accept the board's recommendation, but deferred 
striking on account of the war. The present autumn, two years 
after the findings of the board of 1914 were published, they 
claimed the right still to strike on account of their rejection of 
the previous report. Happily this controversy was settled with- 
out an interruption of traffic; but the law ought to limit the 
period after a board reports during which a lockout or strike 
may be entered into without a second investigation. 

Some years ago, while this legislation was still new, I was 
twice commissioned to investigate its operation for our govern- 
ment. Since these two visits, which extended through nearly 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 235 

all the provinces of the Dominion, I have had little opportunity 
to interview workingmen and employers directly affected by the 
act. At that time it was commended by the general public, by 
employers, and by the mass of working people; but it evoked 
criticism from some labor leaders. However, these objections 
were to details of the law rather than to its fundamental princi- 
ples. When the amendments of 1910 were before Parliament, 
the Minister of Labor read letters from the legislative repre- 
sentatives or other high Canadian officers of the brotherhoods 
of locomotive engineers, of locomotive firemen and enginemen, 
of railway trainmen, of maintenance of way employees, and of 
the order of railway telegraphers, all commending the existing 
law and the proposed amendments. The president of the broth- 
erhood of maintenance of way employees characterized the 
act as "one of the best pieces of legislation that has been passed 
to my knowledge in the interest of industrial peace." Sir 
George Askwith, who investigated the working of this law for 
the British government late in 1912, stated in his conclusions : 

I was struck by the remarkable difference of attitude displayed by 
railway union ofificials generally, as compared with some of the trade- 
union leaders in other trades. The former appeared to recognize that 
the holding up of a railway system by a strike was a procedure only 
justifiable as a last resort, and that it was due to the public that every 
possible step be taken to arrive at a settlement before recourse was had 
to a strike as a measure of adjusting differences. The result of this 
attitude has been that the Canadian railway unions . . . have frankly 
accepted the spirit of the . . . acts, and apply as a natural course 
for boards of investigation and conciliation when difficulties that threaten 
to become serious arise. ... At the meeting of the trade-union 
congress that I attended at Guelph, it was the officials of the railway 
unions who spoke most strongly in defense of the act. . . . The ac- 
ceptance of the theory that the public have a right to be informed im- 
partially of the merits of the questions which gravely threaten their well- 
being, and of the spirit of the _ acts, has been so far adopted by those 
concerned with the Canadian railway system as to place the country in 
almost as safe a position against serious stoppage as it is possible to 
reach. 

Recently the trade-union congress of Canada passed a reso- 
lution asking that the law be repealed. During the Senate hear- 
ings upon the eight-hour law for train operatives, passed by 
Congress last September, Mr. Garretson, president of the Order 
of Railway Conductors, and Mr. Gompers, president of the 
American Federation of Labor, strongly opposed similar legis- 
lation in the United States. The influence of organized labor 
this side of the border is said to account for some of the op- 
position to the act in Canada. International unions have their 
headquarters in this country, and their officers do not like to 
give up the right to call a strike in Canada, if necessary in order 



236 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

to enforce demands upon employers in the United States. 
Moreover union leaders want the power to call sudden strikes, 
and claim that the Canadian act gives employers time to 
strengthen themselves against labor outbreaks. But no great 
strike, especially upon railways or in other industries of na- 
tional importance, can now occur without preliminary negotia- 
tions that sufficiently warn employers in advance of impending 
trouble. Any union that called a strike affecting widely the 
general welfare without first attempting a friendly settlement of 
its difficulties would be defeated by public opinion. My own 
experience with workingmen has been that opposition to gov- 
ernment mediation is stronger among union leaders than among 
their followers. Strikes are like wars ; they open opportunities 
for prominence and distinction to the officers who lead them, 
but only hardship and suffering to the rank and file who fight 
them. Still, the distrust with which workingmen regard laws 
to control their relations with employers is very deep. It is 
founded on an inherited memory of ancient abuses of authority, 
and upon an instinctive conviction that the workers themselves 
are the only sincere defenders of workers' rights. A law upon 
Canadian lines would need to be very liberally drawn, very tact- 
fully administered, and very leniently enforced to win the con- 
fidence and support of American labor. Nevertheless legislation 
in this direction is demanded in the United States by the inter- 
est of all the people. The general right of workers to better 
their condition by any means not detrimental to society as a 
whole is sacred. But the private right of any group of citizens, 
whether employers or employees, to impose its demands by un- 
regulated force should cease as soon as it becomes a public 
wrong. 

STATEMENT BY HON. G. D. ROBERTSON, LL. D. 

MINISTER OF LABOR OF 

THE DOMINION OF 

CANADA* 

The Industrial Disputes Act is not a compulsory arbitration 
law. The only element of compulsion it contains is this, that in 
the case of disputes affecting mines, agencies of transportation 

* Written especially for the Debaters' Handbook. April 20, igao. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 237 

and communication and other public utilities to which the 
statute appUes it makes unlawful the declaration of either a 
strike or lockout until a real effort has been made to secure a 
settlement, and, if the parties concerned have been unable to 
reach a settlement between themselves, it invokes the assistance 
of a Board of Conciliation and Investigation to promote an 
adjustment and bring out the facts. 

During the fourteen years which have elapsed since its enact- 
ment its provisions have been applied to 445 disputes, in con- 
nection with which the parties concerned had failed to agree on 
terms of settlement, and concerning which a sworn declaration 
had been furnished in each case setting forth that "failing an 
adjustment or reference of the dispute to a Board of ConciHa- 
tion and Investigation under the act a lockout or strike will be 
declared and that the necessary authority to declare such lock- 
out or strike had been obtained." It is significant of the success 
of the act that in all but twenty-seven of these cases the threat- 
ened strikes or lockouts, as the case may be, were averted or 
ended. Moreover, in most of the instances in which interrup- 
tion of work actually occurred (for the findings of a Board of 
Conciliation and Investigation under the act are not made bind- 
ing on the parties concerned), the ultimate settlement was on 
the basis of the Board's report. During this fourteen year 
period there was only one serious interruption of railway train 
service. Unfortunately, the law has not been as well observed 
in disputes affecting the mining industry, but in these fields also 
its practical value has been fully proven. Through its opera- 
tion there has been an almost complete avoidance of strikes on 
street railways. The telegraph and telephone service of the 
country have also been saved from interruptions which would 
otherwise have occurred. Undoubtedly, the public has benefited 
greatly by the uninterrupted operation of agencies of trans- 
portation and communication, whilst experience has shown that 
the rights of employers and emploj^ees have been safe-guarded 
and upheld. 

The Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, like all other good 
things in this world, has not escaped criticism; nor would it be 
possible for any law bearing on a subject fraught with so many 
difficulties to meet with universal favour. During the earlier 
stage of its operation resolutions were passed by some of the 
labour bodies calling for its repeal. It is significant of the pres- 



238 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ent attitude of the Trades and Labour Congress, the most rep- 
resentative body of organized labour in Canada, that at its last 
annual meeting a resolution was adopted asking the government 
to amend the law so as to bring civic employees under its opera- 
tion. On the other hand, a proposal has been received recently 
from the representative body of employers engaged in the build- 
ing and construction industry throughout Canada favourable to 
the extension of the act to disputes aflfecting this important in- 
dustry. 

Apart from its application in the case of disputes affecting 
mines and public utihties, the Industrial Disputes Investigation 
Act has also had a limited application, by joint consent of in- 
dividual employers and groups of employees to disputes affect- 
ing other departments of industry, such as building and con- 
struction, meat and fish packing, manufacturing, etc., and in 
nearly all of these last named cases satisfactory settlements were 
reached through the Board's efforts. 

The operation of the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act 
is reviewed in the report of the Deputy Minister of Labour for 
the year ending March 31, 1919. 



TRIAL BY JURY^ 

Several years ago, when we had to adjust a wage contro- 
versy with the engineers on our eastern roads, a very distin- 
guished board of arbitrators, in settling our differences, pointed 
out the dangers inherent in attempting to settle railroad indus- 
trial disputes by resort to the strike. 

This board said : "From the point of view of the pubHc it is 
an intolerable situation when any group of men, whether em- 
ployees or employers, whether large or small, have the power to 
decide that a great section of the country shall undergo a great 
loss of life, unspeakable suffering and loss of property beyond 
the power of description through the stoppage of necessary pub- 
lic service. This, however, is the situation that confronts us as 
a nation." 

It was the opinion of this board that "the public utilities of 
the nation are of such fundamental importance to the whole 

]Elisha Lee, Assistant General Manager of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road. Independent. 89:143-4. January 22, 19 17. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 239 

people that their operation must not be interrupted, and means 
must be worked out which will guarantee this result." 

That situation, so vividly portrayed, still confronts us as a 
nation. It confronted us in that crucial week in August when 
the president told the country "This situation must never be al- 
lowed to arise again." 

The remedy proposed by the president is that "a full public 
investigation of the merits of every dispute shall be instituted 
and completed before a strike or lockout may lawfully be at- 
tempted." 

This, in essence, is compulsory investigation rather than 
compulsory arbitration — restricting the right to strike or lock- 
out pending an investigation, but in no way restricting the right 
of the parties in the controversy to fight it out afterward should 
they refuse to accept the recommendations of the board. 

It seems clear to me that a differentiation between private in- 
dustrial warfare and public industrial v/arfare such as a rail- 
road strike is essential to any intelligent understanding of the 
question at issue. Private industrial warfare, in other words, 
need not here be considered at all. The situation is diiiferent. 
The premises are different. The conclusions must be different. 
This fact is reflected, of course, in the very law proposed by 
the president in that it is concerned only with interstate com- 
merce. 

When we were in Washington, we heard the chief spokes- 
men for several million organized workers warn congress that 
any law restricting the right to strike would be fought by the 
workers he represented. Mr. Gompers, in speaking before the 
senate committee, placed in the record, as the view of organ- 
ized labor, the dissenting opinion of the late Justice Harlan in 
an admiralty case, in which the principles of human liberty as 
guaranteed by the constitution were most clearly and forcibly 
laid down. "The supreme law of the land," said the Justice, 
"now declares that involuntary servitude, except as a punish- 
ment for a crime, shall not exist anywhere in the land." 

But Justice Harlan, in the same opinion, pointed out that "in- 
voluntary service rendered for the public, pursuant as well to 
the requirements of a statute as to a previous voluntary en- 
gagement, is not in any legal sense, either slavery or involuntary 
servitude." He was referring particularly to service in the army 
and navy. But is not service rendered in interstate commerce 
likewise a public service? Has not the nation the right to say 



240 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

to the railroad workers, as suggested by the President, "You 
must not interrupt the national life without consulting us?" 

The threat of a nation-wide stoppage of railroad traffic, that 
would strike at the very heart of our national existence, found 
the country unprepared to defend itself, and it brought home 
to everybody the necessity of finding a means of safeguarding 
the economic life of the whole country against the possibility of 
internal industrial warfare. 

This is a problem that must be solved, and in its solution we 
must keep clearly in mind the rights and duties of all the parties 
at interest. The problem, it seems to me, is but another phase 
of the centuries-old conflict between private rights and public 
duties. 

Railroad regulation has been an evolution. Our railroads 
grew up in an age when enterprise, initiative and energetic busi- 
ness ability had unrestricted opportunity for development. Un- 
like the railroads of Europe they preceded population and took 
the risks of pioneers in developing the country and settling it. 
In the early days we were too busy building the railroads to 
think much about regulation. But when the whole country be- 
came gridironed with steel rails and steam transportation be- 
came an integral part of the life of the nation, there developed 
our modern conception of tthe public character of these arteries 
of commerce and of the need of constructive regulation in the 
public interest. 

The mandate of the people, through acts of Congress and 
decisions of the courts, is that the railroads must be continu- 
ously operated in the public interest— the public interest is 
greater than that of the individuals who own these properties, 
or of the individuals who earn their livelihood in the operation 
of them. And when the private rights of the railroads have 
come into conflict with their public duties, the public, through 
the courts, has declared that public duties are greater than 
private rights. To the railroads the public says : "You must op- 
erate continuously, under such regulation as we provide, and 
under such tariffs as we approve." Yet, to the two million of 
our citizens who are actually engaged in this public service — 
and without whom it could not be conducted — the public has 
neglected to issue any instructions. It has failed, in other 
words, to mark the difference between the private rights and 
the public duties of the employees. 

The unfortunate controversy of last August brought vividly 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 241 

before the country the weakness of a system of pubUc regula- 
tion of railroads, which fails to provide insurance against a 
paralysis of the internal commerce of the nation. The crisis 
came. The President felt compelled to intervene in the public 
interest. And when he attempted to intervene he found that the 
existing machinery of voluntary arbitration was inadequate to 
avert the threatened trouble. 

It may, indeed, fairly be asked. Is not this unrestricted right 
of the railroad employees to quit work in a body a menace to 
the pubhc welfare? Does not the individual who chooses to 
earn his livelihood in the public service of transportation as- 
sume a duty to help keep open these vital arteries of commerce 
— a duty greater than the private right to strike? 

A member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Judge 
Clements, recently expressed the opinion that railroad employees 
are affected with a public interest that they can no more ignore 
than can the carriers, and he suggested that there should be a 
legally established obligation upon these employees not to inter- 
rupt the service by strike until the justice of their demands has 
been determined by some public tribunal. Such a definition by 
law of the public duties of railroad employees must have been 
in the mind of the President when he told a gathering of busi- 
ness men recently that "the business of government is to see 
that no other organization is as strong as itself; to see that no 
body or group of men, no matter what their individual interest 
is, may come into competition with the authority of society it- 
self." 

"America is never going to say to any individual," the Pres- 
ident declared, " 'You must work whether you want to or not,' 
but it is privileged to say to an organization of persons 'You 
must not interrupt the national life without consulting us.' " 

If the all-embracing commerce power under the Constitu- 
tion covers railroad wages as well as railroad rates, then the 
way is open for Congress to turn the whole problem of railroad 
wages over to the Interstate Commerce Commission, or, as has 
been proposed by eminent publicists, to an Interstate Wage 
Commission, working in cooperation with the Commerce Com- 
mission. It may be that something such as this will be the 
ultimate solution of the railroad wage problem — regulation of 
wages by the same government commission, or an ancillary one, 
that regulates railroad rates. 



242 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

When it is considered that nearly two-thirds of the cost of 
railroad operation is the wage bill, it is seen how closely related 
are the considerations of railroad rates and the amount of the 
wages which the company must pay to its employees. 

No matter what remedy is finally adopted by Congress for 
safeguarding the nation against the sudden interruption of in- 
terstate commerce, there are many strong advocates of a plan 
for continuous oversight of railroad labor conditions by a 
permanent body of expert commissioners — men of the same 
high attainments and integrity as the men who make up the 
Interstate Commerce Commission. 

We are at the parting of the vvays. One road before us is 
a continuation of the system of unrestricted private wage bar- 
gaining that eventually leads to settlement by force. The other 
road is a restriction and regulation, of private wage bargaining 
in order to give fuller protection to the rights of the public — 
trial by jury instead of trial by brute force. 

This is a problem in which all of us, as American citizens, 
have a vital interest. I have endeavored to state the facts with- 
out prejudice. I am not an advocate of any particular plan, but 
I am an advocate of industrial peace — not peace at any price, 
but peace that will insure the best possible wages and working 
conditions for our employees together with the highest efficiency 
in the operation of our transportation systems. 

There must be, as President Wilson has so well said, " a full 
and scrupulous regard for the interest and liberties of all con- 
cerned." 

I am in favor of an investigation, rather than an inquest. I 
believe there should be an inquiry by some properly constituted 
tribunal into the facts of a wage dispute before there is any re- 
sort to force, rather than an inquest after the trouble has been 
made and the damage done, to learn the causes of the disaster. 

I am not prepared to say that all wage problems on the rail- 
roads should be placed unreservedly in the control of a public 
commission, but I do believe that when a controversy between 
the managements and the men reaches a stage where the inter- 
ests of the pubHc are imperiled, that then there should be a 
peaceful settlement and a judicial settlement, that will conserve 
the public interest as well as the rights of the parties to the 
controvers}', and if it is finally determined that any body of men 
be required in the public interest to subordinate their private 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 243 

rights to their public duties, it should be with the full under- 
standing that their private rights must be in every way safe- 
guarded by the public. 



AN INDUSTRIAL PEACE PLAN' 

The fact that the United States has given to the world a 
peace plan — embodied in thirty treaties with governments repre- 
senting three-quarters of the population of the world and in the 
covenant of the league of nations (described by the president 
as "the heart of the covenant") — makes it worth while to con- 
sider whether the plan may not be employed for the settlement 
of industrial disputes. I venture to add, if I may be pardoned, 
that I advocated the plan as a means of settling industrial dis- 
putes some fifteen years ago, before I thought of applying it to 
international controversies. 

In all disputes there are three factors that enter into the 
selection of a remedy: First, the disposition of the parties; 
second, the recognition of the need for a remedy; and third, 
the machinery through which the desire for a remedy can find 
effective expression. 

We may assume the existence of a desire, practically uni- 
versal, for the peaceful settlement of all disputes between labor 
and capital. Even in international affairs there is no doubt that 
a large majority of the people of all civilized nations oppose war 
except as a last resort. They prefer peaceful means to the 
arbitrament of war, but it is difficult for the popular will to find 
expression. 

Secret diplomacy has concealed the earlier stages of interna- 
tional controversies so that the people relied upon to do the 
fighting have been kept in ignorance until a sudden call to arms 
paralyzed the peace sentiment and subjected those who protested 
to the charge of treason. Then, too, long-standing race prej- 
udices, prejudices between nations, and sometimes, religious 
prejudices, have made it easy for militarists to inflame the pas- 
sions that developed local clashes into armed conflicts. Manu- 
facturers who make fortunes out of war contracts are quick to 
take advantage of the ignorance of the people and of popular 
passions, and their' profits are so large that they can, when they 

^William J. Bryan. The Commoner. 20:3. January, 1920. 



244 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

find it necessary, control such newspapers as are purchasable. 
To these disadvantages under which the masses labor may be 
added the undemocratic character of many governments and the 
political influence of the military parties. 

♦ * ♦ 

The hope of universal peace rests upon the progress now 
being made along all the lines above mentioned. Secret diplom- 
acy, or at least the secret treaty, is abolished by the league of 
nations; prejudice will decrease as general intelligence increases 
and as a reduction of armaments lessens the force of the ap- 
peals made by militarists and manufacturers of munitions, while 
the growth of democracy constantly increases the relative influ- 
ence of the average man in his government. And possibly the 
greatest change of all is the appearance of woman in the arena 
of politics, with her attachment for the home to inspire her to 
combat war, the enemy of her home. 

The league of nations is launched upon the world at a most 
auspicious time. The late war, surpassing all previous conflicts 
in its cost, whether measured by blood, by expenditure of 
money, or by the mortgage that it lays upon the toil of future 
generations, has convinced the world that something must be 
done. The people everywhere are calling for machinery through 
which the desire for peace may find expression. 

* ♦ * 

The league of nations furnishes the machinery, and, fortu- 
nately, the leading nations had been prepared Tor the plan by 
their recent agreements with the United States providing for 
investigation of all disputes of every kind and character before 
a resort to war. Whatever differences may exist as to the de- 
tails of the covenant, a league of nations, established for the 
purpose of settling all international disputes by peaceful means, 
is one of the certainties of the future. 

Likewise, in the matter of industrial disputes at home, we 
may assume, I repeat, that the sentiment is practically unani- 
mous in favor of a peaceful settlement of such controversies. 
The strike and the lockout are, in the field of industry what war 
is between nations. Each is an attempt at compulsion ; one 
seeks to force the employer to terms by shutting off the labor 
supply and the other attempts to force employes to terms by 
withdrawing the opportunity of earning a livelihood. 

Neither can be regarded as desirable, even by the side that 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 245 

employs it; it is in the nature of a last resort and is only em- 
ployed when argument fails. And, even if the strike and the 
lockout were desired by either party to the dispute, or by both 
parties, what of the third party — the public? No strike can 
DIRECTLY affect any large percentage of the people, but the 
indirect effect may reach every one. 
* * * 

Take three strikes as illustrations. The coal strike, which 
threatened to paralyze a great basic industry and shut off the 
supply of fuel at the beginning of winter, directly concerned a 
few thousand mine owners and something like a half million 
mine workers, but it indirectly reached the firesides of a hun- 
dred millions of people and the furnaces that furnish power for 
all our factories. The steel strike, with a comparatively few 
stockholders and few hundred thousand employes, has partially 
paralyzed many branches of industry and indirectly laid tribute 
upon a multitude of homes. 

At one time a railway strike seemed possible; that would 
have immediately touched the pocket nerve of capitalists who 
control twenty billions of railway stocks (partly water) and 
railroad bonds, and would have suspended the earning capacity 
of nearly two million persons, but it would have greatly incon- 
venienced nearly fifty times as many who patronize the rail- 
roads. The public, like the innocent bystander, gets hurt, even 
though the actual combatants are few in number in proportion 
to the entire population. A whole nation desires peace in in- 
dustry, and the recent strikes and rumors of strikes have 
directed public attention to a great need, made apparent by so- 
ciety's helplessness. 

Now is the opportune time to consider an industrial peace 
plan. The harvest is ripe, the reapers are waiting; machinery 
is the need of the hour. The peace plan, that has made remote 
the possibility of war between us and the contracting nations 
and now promises to hasten the coming of universal and per- 
petual peace throughout the world, would seem to offer the 
easiest means of settling labor disputes before they reach the 
strike or lockout stage. The plan is simple; it provides for a 
public investigation before resort to any attempt at compulsion 
on the part of either capital or labor. 

Compulsory arbitration does not meet our industrial needs 
any more than it does our international needs. Before we 



246 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

adopted the plan providing for investigating all international 
disputes we relied for security on our arbitration treaties, 
twenty-six in number, which provided for the arbitration of 
minor questions; but these treaties specifically excluded from 
arbitration questions of honor and independence, vital interests 
and the interests of third parties — the very questions out of 
which wars grow. The peace plan upon which we now rely 
closes the gap and leaves no dispute out of which a war can 
grow until after a period of investigation sufficient in length to 
permit passions to subside and questions of fact to be separated 
from questions of honor. 

« « * 

So, in industrial controversies, we cannot compel employers 
to pay wages that will be destructive of their business, neither 
can we compel wage earners to work for insufficient pay — the 
one would be confiscation and the other slavery. And, in the 
arbitration of industrial disputes, it is really a gamble upon the 
bias of the one man who decides the controversy. Arbitration 
boards are usually made up of representatives of the two sides 
about equally divided, with one man, supposed to be impartial, 
but — as no one is or can be absolutely impartial in such matters, 
everything depends on which side secures the umpire. 

I am aware that there are some who will contend that every 
man OUGHT to be impartial but that which SHOULD BE is 
sometimes imaginary rather than real. We have to use the ma- 
terial we have; we cannot expect to find perfect men when we 
are in search of arbitrators. If we had any perfect men in this 
country they would be in such demand for permanent public 
duties that they could not be spared for the occasional work of 
preventing strikes. 

But, while compulsory ARBITRATION is as impossible as 
it is undesirable, compulsory INVESTIGATION is not only de- 
fensible, but unobjectionable. Public opinion is the final arbiter 
in all matters in a government like ours — that is, public opinion 
intelligently formed upon all the facts involved; and how can 
the public form an intelligent opinion until it is in possession of 
the facts? 

The time has passed when either side to a great industrial 
controversy can demand judgment on a one-sided statement of 
the differences. However convinced it may be of the justness 
of its cause, neither side can foreclose discussion and demand 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 247 

an immediate verdict in its favor. While every one has a gen- 
eral bias on one side or the other, the great majority of parti- 
sans are open to conviction and desire to hear both sides before 
the jury is polled. 

The peace plan proposed meets all the objections that can be 
raised to compulsory arbitration, provides for the fullest in- 
vestigation, and assures representation to both sides. The com- 
mission contemplated by the plan should be a permanent board 
of, say, three members; two should represent the two classes, 
employers and employes, and the remaining member should be 
so disconnected from the two classes as to reduce his bias to a 
minimum. He should be free from business or social obliga- 
tions to either side, so that he can represent the public rather 
than the parties to the dispute. 

* * * 

The commission should be empowered to investigate upon 
the request of either party, and should have authority to act on 
its own initiative in case the feeling on both sides should re- 
strain the parties from making a request, and it should have 
ample power to call witnesses and compel the submission of 
papers, books, etc., bearing on the case. In each case inves- 
tigated two members should be added to the board, one chosen 
by each side, to serve during the investigation, with authority 
equal to the permanent members and with equal prorata com- 
pensation. 

This would insure a minority report if the investigation re- 
sulted in a disagreement, and each party to the dispute would 
have its side fully presented. As the report would not be le- 
gally binding upon either side, but rest upon its merits, the 
members of the commission would be even more apt to strive 
for equal and exact justice than they would if, by their findings, 
they could settle the question on the side to which they lean. 

With such a tribunal always ready to act, the parties to the 
controversy could be restrained from strike or lockout for a 
reasonable time, while the commission is investigating just as 
under the peace plan the contracting nations agree not to resort 
to war until after investigation. 

Public opinion would support the majority report and thus 
compel a settlement in accordance therewith, unless the reasons 
given by the minority members appealed more strongly to the 
judgment of the public. The creation of such a tribunal would 



248 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

not only furnish the machinery necessary and prevent strikes 
and lockouts in nearly every case, but the very existence of such 
a tribunal would tend to restore harmony between the two 
classes, just as an anticipated strike or lockout tends to create 
discord. 

Such a tribunal, based upon fair principles and giving equal 
consideration to the claims of both sides, would also tend to 
cultivate confidence in the government and a respect for law, 
while it would, on the other hand, silence those who seek a pre- 
text for declaiming against organized government. 

I submit the plan (it can be used by states and by com- 
munities as well as by the nation) in the belief that it will con- 
tribute towards the end which all good citizens have in view, 
namely, the proper use of a people's government for the pro- 
tection of the rights of each citizen and the promotion of the 
welfare of all. 



BRIEF EXCERPTS 

We can not and should not, as a people, tolerate the pos- 
sibility of a repetition of the Chicago railway strike of 1894, or 
the anthracite coal strike of 1902. — Adams and Sumner. Labor 
Problems, p 326. 

The state and federal governments should provide the ma- 
chinery for what may be called the Compulsory Investigation 
of controversies when they arise. — Report of the Anthracite 
Coal Strike Commission of 1902. 

It would not be slavery to limit the right of even an in- 
dividual to stop work on a public utility any more than it is 
slavery to make it illegal for a sailor to desert his vessel in the 
midst of a voyage. — Outlook 114: 783. December 13, 1916. 

Under [voluntary] arbitration in Canada about three per 
cent of the cases were settled by peaceful processes without the 
cessation of work. Under the new law [Industrial Disputes In- 
vestigation Act] ninety-seven per cent have been settled peace- 
fully without cessation of work.— Outlook. 94 : 648. March 26, 
1910. 

Policemen and others, whose duties relate to the administra- 
tion of justice and the preservation of life and property, should 
not join, or retain active membership in, or be affiliated with 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 249 

organizations that resort to the strike. This conclusion is based 
upon the principle that they should be above any suspicion in 
the public mind of partiality in the discharge of their official 
duties. — Report of the [second} Industrial Conference called by 
the President, March 6, 1920. p. 43. 

I favor compulsory investigation, believing that the public, 
w^hen properly informed, would settle all of these great ques- 
tions between capital and labor. 

I repeat that when the facts have been disclosed as to the 
controversy that exists between capital and labor, between own- 
ers and railroad employees, I think the strike will proceed no 
further because the party at fault would necessarily have to 
surrender to force of public opinion.— i'^nofor Charles E. 
Townsend. Congressional Record. December 17, 1919. 

The public's right to uninterrupted street car service is para- 
mount to every other consideration involved. Regardless of the 
justice or injustice of the employes' present demands, they 
should not be privileged to tie up local transportation in order 
to enforce them. A street car or railroad strike represents the 
effort of a small group to club the public into supporting their 
demands — an example of intolerable minority rule. Regardless 
of what the law may say, employes engaged in such an occupa- 
tion as the operation of railways have no moral right to 
prostrate the transportation of a nation or a community, pro- 
vided that machinery has been established to give them ample 
hearing. — Cleveland Plain Dealer. April 30, 1920. 

The Industrial Disputes Investigation Act seems to be gain- 
ing support in Canada with longer experience, and has very 
few opponents outside of labor ranks. The labor opposition is 
strongest where socialism is strongest. There seems to be less 
unqualified opposition to the law among the members of the 
unions than among the officials, but this is stated as a con- 
jecture rather than as -an assured fact. The act has afforded 
machinery for settling most of the disputes that have occurred 
in the industries to which it applies; but in some cases it has 
postponed rather than prevented strikes, and in other cases 
strikers have defied law with impunity. — Victor S. Clark. Bul- 
letin. U. S. Bureau of Labor. 20 : 29. January, 1910. 

No effort has been in the past to punish a large body of 
men for striking. This raises the question of the value of the 
penal provisions of the law. It is argued that if the act does 



250 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

not put strikers in jail and subject offending employers to 
heavy fines, these provisions are useless. But even though 
violations are seldom prosecuted, neither strikers nor employers 
dare defy the law of the land in disputes prominently before 
the public and affecting the prosperity and comfort of a large 
body of citizens. By doing so they would put a powerful 
weapon in the hands of their opponents, and they would fatally 
prejudice their case in the high court of public opinion. — Victor 
S. Clark. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 7 : 
15-16. January, 1917. 

The employes' right to strike and the employer's right to 
lock out his employes are both secondary to the public's right to 
service. Since the public interest is paramount, it follows that 
public opinion is, and should be, a potent influence for the 
settlement of labor disputes. Therefore, machinery should be 
set up to develop and crystallize this opinion according to estab- 
lished facts, and until these facts have been established neither 
party should resort to strike or lockout. In essential industries, 
government services and public utilities prompt settlement of 
disputes should be effected by the efforts of both parties. The 
public's right to uninterrupted service during the period of set- 
tlement is a primary consideration.— From Declaration of the 
Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. Survey. 43 : 749. March 13, 
1920. 

So far as the strike in general industry is concerned there is 
general concession that it is a legitimate and, within bounds of 
moderation, even an essential instrument of self-defense and 
advancement under the competitive system of private industry. 
Bnt in another field the strike takes on a darker coloring. In 
public service and in industries the continuous operation of 
which is essential to public safetj', the strike becomes a form of 
action with which the public must concern itself for self-preser- 
vation. Democracy cannot survive if it is to be constantly at 
the mercy of a small minority. It ceases to be a democracy un- 
der such conditions and falls prey to a new form of autocracy 
or oligarchy. Our political liberty becomes as nothing if it can- 
not protect society from this. — Chicago Tribune, March 21, 
1920. 

It will be necessary sometime to put the railway services in 
a position where the concerted strike will be impossible. Rail- 
roads are of just as essential a public character as are forces of 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 251 

policemen and firemen, or the postal clerks and carriers. The 
strike is not a proper weapon to be used by men in such employ- 
ments. A concerted railroad strike would necessitate the opera- 
tion of railroads by military power, in order to supply the people 
of cities with food and other necessities. Since, however, the 
strike is not morally permissible under these circumstances, 
there is the more reason why the public should see that railway 
servants have exceptionally good treatment as regards wages 
and all conditions of employment and service. On reasonable 
terms, and at proper intervals, they should have opportunity to 
secure arbitration of all well-formulated claims and demands. — 
Review of Reviews. 48: 146. August, 1913. 



PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES INVESTI- 
GATION ACT OF CANADA 1 

Number boards Strikes not 
granted averted or ended 



21 4 

23 4 

16 4 

16 3 

15 I 
18 I 
12 I 

16 I 
37 I 
S9 2 

7 o 

374 287 24 

* Twelfth [1919] Report of the Registrar of Boards of Conciliation and 
Investigation, p. 76, 







Number of 


Calendar 


year 


applications 


1907- 


-(9 months) 


25 


1908 




27 


1909 




22 


1910 




28 


1911 




21 


1913 




16 


1913 




18 


1914 




18 


191S 




IS 


1916 




29 


1917 




S3 


1918 




93 


1919- 


-(3 months) 


9 



252 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES INVESTI- 
GATION ACT OF CANADA, MARCH 22, 1907 TO MARCH 31, 1919I 

No. of disputes No. of Btrlkes 

referred under not averted 

Industries affected Act or ended 

I.— DISPUTES AFFECTING MINES, TRANS- 
PORTATION, PUBLIC UTILITIES AND 
WAR WORK:— 

(i) Mines: — 

(a) Coal 49 6 

(b) Metal 17 5 

(c) Asbestos i o 

Total Mines 67 u 

(2) Transportation and Communication: — 

(a) Railways 126 7 

(b) Street railways SS 3 

(c) Express 7 o 

(d) Shipping 16 o 

(e) Telegraphs 9 i 

(f) Telephones 4 o 

Total Transportation and Communi 

cation 217 11 

(3) Public Utilities: — 

(a) Light and Power 8 o 

(b) Elevators i o 

Total Public Utilities 9 

(4) War Work 30 i 

Total Mines, Transportation, Public 

Utilities and War Work 323 23 



II.— DISPUTES NOT FALLING CLEARLY 
WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE ACT:— 

• (a) Public Utilities under Provincial or 

Municipal Control 28 i 

(b) Miscellaneous 23 o 

Total disputes not falling clearly 

within the scope of the Act 51 i 

Total all classes 374 24 

* Twelfth [1919] Report of the Registrar of Boards of Conciliation 
and Investigation, p. 7S. 



NEGATIVE DISCUSSION 



STATEMENT OF SAMUEL GOMPERS' 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, of the 
subject of a general investigation into the cost, into the sub- 
jects of rights, operation, constitutional guaranties, and all there 
can really be no objection. I have in mind the fact that at a 
meeting of the executive council of the American Federation of 
Labor a resolution was adopted pledging the brotherhoods the 
cooperation and support of the American Federation of Labor 
in the effort to establish the eight-hour workday in the rail- 
road service, and another resolution adopted by our council 
against any form of compulsory arbitration with compulsory 
award, or in any way that would take away from the men of 
the railroad service the rightful ownership of themselves. 

The individual, industrially, has lost his individuality in 
modern times. He is simply a cog in the great wheel of indus- 
try, and all of the workers, as cogs, operate in cooperation 
with each other, and when that is true individual right is gone. 
How can individual workmen resent, or an individual work- 
man resent, any wrong or injustice? 

The man who works on a railroad for a long time, as a rule, 
is unfitted for any other service. He has got to apply for 
work in the railroad service upon other lines, and with the 
combination of the managers of the railroads an individual 
workman has a splendid chance of establishing and maintaining 
his industrial rights. 

I understand the purpose — that is, if enacted into law the 
men will be stayed from acting in concert until the commission 
has made its investigation. But in the meantime concerted ac- 
tion to stop work is unlawful and punishable. 

In other words, an American citizen, American workers, 
have the right not to be compelled to work against their will. 

1 Statement of Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Interstate 
Commerce, August 31, 1916. 



254 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Involuntary service can not be enforced under the Constitution 
of the United States, and yet when 5, or 10, or 500 or 5,000 
propose to exercise their constitutional, guaranteed right to do 
a thing it is made unlawful, and they are compelled to give 
involuntary service. 

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that may be a very fond 
wish to tie men to their work, but we have been taught some- 
thing in these United States, both as natives and as naturalized 
citizens; that is, that there are some rights to which the mas- 
ses of the people are entitled, and I can not conceive of their 
giving up those rights without a protest, an emphatic protest. 
You may make strikes illegal, may make strikers criminal, 
but you are not going to avert strikes when strikes are neces- 
sary in order to express the needs of America's workers for a 
higher and a better consideration of their rights and of stand- 
ards of the service which they give to society and without which 
society itself is imperiled. 

The experience of the countries that have attempted com- 
pulsory arbitration and the enforcement of a compulsory 
award, the experience of countries in which compulsory in- 
vestigation and the stay of the workers from quitting their 
employment, has been all to the detriment of the principle in 
itself of compulsion and a denial of the right of the workers 
to leave their employment. 

In the Australasian countries the efifort has gone to the fur- 
thest limit, and I may say to you gentlemen that the Austra- 
lian compulsory arbitration act was put into existence after a 
strike almost analogous to the position now before us, except 
that this is attempted before a strike, before a proposed strike, 
and out of the desire to tie the men to their work; out of a 
desire, by law, to make strikes and lockouts impossible — the de- 
nial of rights guaranteed not only by time and Constitution but 
by common concept have been taken away. 

In Colorado there exists a law that makes it unlawful for 
men to strike pending an investigation of the dispute. That 
law has been not only abortive in preventing strikes, it has not 
only injured the interests of the workers and interfered and 
denied their rights, but it has resulted in a revolution of feel- 
ing to such an extent that at the convention of the organized 
workers of Colorado, the Colorado State Federation of Labor 
last month passed a resolution, with but one dissenting vote. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 255 

against the proposition, demanding the repeal of that law at 
the hands of the legislature of that State. 

I have a copy of the Colorado State Federation of Labor 
resolutions and I submit it as part of my remarks. 

RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL 
CONVENTION OF COLORADO STATE FEDERATION OF 
LABOR, DECLARING FOR THE REPEAL OF THE INDUS- 
TRIAL-COMMISSION LAW. 

The rights and liberties of the wage earners of the State of Colorado 
have been invaded and usurped by the enactment of the industrial com- 
mission law. The extensive powers and authority conferred upon the 
three commissioners provided for in this law transcends and overshadows 
the power and authority conferred upon all other political departments 
of the State. 

The thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution provides that 
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for 
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist with- 
in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." In 
contravention of this amendment, and in defiance of the specific declara- 
tion against slavery and involuntary servitude, the twentieth General 
Assembly of Colorado passed the industrial-commission law, which makes 
it a misdemeanor for employees not to give at least 30 days' notice to 
the industrial commission when a change affecting conditions of employ- 
ment with respect to wages and hours is desired, and provides that any 
offender shall be punished by a fine. 

With an assumption of power unparalleled in the annals of legislative 
history, the industrial commission was clothed with the power and au- 
thority to override and set aside the first amendment to the Federal 
Constitution, which provides that, "Congress shall make no laws * * » 
abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the 
people to peacefully assemble and petition the Government for redress 
of grievances. In defiance of this amendment the Colorado General 
Assembly empowered the industrial commission to forbid any person "To 
incite or encotirage in any manner any employee to go or continue on 
strike contrary to the provisions of the industrial-commission law," and 
provided a penalty of fine and imprisonment should such employee exer- 
cise his rights under the Federal Constitution. 

The law further empowers the industrial commission to invade the 
meetings of wage earners, thus destroying the right of free assemblage. 

The industrial commission is given the further power of exercising 
unlimited authority over the various departments of the State govern- 
ment which either directly or remotely deal with the conditions, health, 
or activities of the wage earners of the State. 

The American Federation of Labor has, during its entire existence, 
exercised its great influence against the delegation of any of the per- 
sonal rights of the working people to political commissions, for these 
rights are fundamental and deal with their lives and liberties. 

Government by commission is not a government of or b- the people 
and is a menace not only to the welfare of the wage earners but to 
the people as a whole. 

The industrial commission is not directly responsible to the people 
of the State, and the power and authority placed in its hands is not in 
consonance with the spirit of a republican form of_ government. 

The fundamental reasons underlying the organizations of labor are 
found in the almost universal injustice inflicted upon the wage earners. 
Alleged economists, unfair employers, scheming politicians and corrupt 
courts have sought, by their machinations and specious arguments, to 
define labor power as property or as a commodity. The Sherman anti- 
trust law, passed in 1890, was framed for the specific purpose of regu- 
lating aggregations of capital, but labor organizations were the first 
attacked as illegal _ combinations in restraint of trade. For 24 years the 
American Federation of Labor heroically fought to secure legislation 
containing a specific provision drawing a clear line of demarcation be- 
tween human and property rights. The passage of the labor provisions 



2^6 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of the Clayton antitrust law, containing that now famous declaration, 
"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce," 
was the result of its efforts to restore to the wage earners their rights 
guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the United States. 

Almost immediately following the passage of this Federal law, the 
Colorado General Assembly placed upon its statute books the industrial- 
commission law, ^ hich arrogantly defies the legislation enacted by the 
Federal Congress. 

The laboring people of the State of Colorado do not propose to sub- 
missively submit to this invasion of their rights. We resent the impu- 
tation that we are not loyal citizens of the United States and of the 
State of Colorado, and that it is necessary that we be restrained from 
exercising any right guaranteed to every other citizen. Upon every 
page of history there is written the wrongs committed against labor, and 
wherever it has had the courage and independence to assert its rights 
and to exercise its economic and political power, there has always fol- 
lowed subtle schemes of which the industrial-commission law is a coun- 
terpart, to deprive the wage earners of their rights and liberties. 

So far the power conferred upon the industrial commission has been 
cautiously employed, with the evident purpose in view of securing the 
support of the wage earners. With adroitness and clever argument the 
industrial-commission law has been advertised in other States by its sup- 
porters as a new solution of the labor problem. The men and women 
of labor, whose bodies bear the imprint of industry's scars, are assured 
that their rights, liberties, and interests are safe in the hands of this 
political commission. The wisdom and judgment of the officials of labor, 
acquired by long experience, are lightly waived aside by these new 
guardians of labor's vital interests. Already flushed with the wisdom 
of still greater power, the industrial commission, through its votaries, 
are clamoring for still more power, although, according to the terms of 
the law, every statute in the State which relates directly or indirectly 
to_ labor comes under the power and authority of the industrial com- 
mission. 

Therefore, it is plainly evident that the organized labor movement 
of the State of Colorado must immediately prepare to protect itself 
againstthis invasion of its rights and libertit.s. The continuation of the 
industrial commission law will eventually strip from the workers of this 
State every right which they now enjoy, and will destroy the inde- 
pendence of the trade-unions and make of the working people mere 
vassals. 

The industrial commission has already made a record which challenges 
the fundamental principles of the American Federation of Labor. 

The industrial commission law places in the hands of three men 
(whose experience deprives them of a full or even a partial knowledge 
of the great struggle of the wage earners) the destiny of the working 
people of this State. In fact, our entire lives would be dominated and 
controlled by three men. 

The influence which placed this law upon the statute books of the 
State of Colorado is the same influence that defied the eight-hour law 
in the coal mines and was responsible for the coal miners^ strike. 

It is the same influence that denied the right of organization to the 
coal miners of the State. 

It IS the same influence that made it necessary for Congress to select 
a special committee of investigation to bring to public light the indignities 
and the brutality exercised by the coal operators in the southern fields. 

It is the same influence that sought to sacrifice the life of John R. 
Lawson because he championed the cause of the striking coal miners. 

It is the same influence that snuffed out the lives of the women and 
children of Ludlow. 

It is the same influence that caused the present governor of this State 
to declare in the public press that if the smelter men on strike in Lead- 
ville continued their protest, the military arm of the State would be 
employed to drive them back to work. 

It is the same influence that converted Huerfano County into a caldron 
of corruption, and rendered unsafe the lives of its citizens, unless they 
blindly submitted to the absolute dictation of corporation gunmen. 

It is the same influence that sought to prejudice the minds of the 
citizenship generally by publicity bureaus. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 257 

It is the same influence that is employing every effort to securely 
fasten this law upon the wage earners of this State in order that its 
influence may play its part in subjugating the workers of other States. 

In fact, the wage earners of this State are fully cognizant of the 
reasons for the introduction and passage of this law, and the influences 
and desires of those who were responsible for its enactment. 

In the light of these facts, and with a full confidence in the courage, 
loyalty, and ability of the wage earners of this State, the State feder- 
ation of labor, in twenty-first annual convention assembled, does hereby 
declare : 

That the workers will not relinquish the right to strike whenever 
and wherever that course may be deemed advisable by the men and 
women of labor. The right to strike is the only distinguishing mark 
between free men and slaves, and we shall unflinchingly make every 
sacrifice to retain our freedom. 

That we shall resist to the uttermost any attempt upon the part of 
the industrial commission to wrest from us any of those rights and 
liberties guaranteed by the organic law of our country. 

That the unqualified repeal of the industrial-commission law, every 
section and paragraph, shall be made the paramount issue of the com- 
ing campaisn, and that we shall hold to strict accountability the men 
and political parties of Colorado who and which ask for the suffrage of 
the citizens of our State. 

That the workmen's compensation law be amended in such a manner 
as to provide for officers to administer that law. 

Conscious of the great wrong committed in attempting to deprive 
the wealth producers of this State of their rights and liberties, yet un- 
daunted in our iight for justice, freedom, democracy, and humanity, we 
confidently submit our course to the sympathetic consideration and co- 
operation of our fellow workers and fellow citizens of Colorado. 

Adopted August 17, 1916. 

In Canada, under the law of which the pending bill is prop- 
erly a replica, Mr. Garretson has already referred to several 
instances. Let me say, in one instance an American officer sent 
the benefits provided by the constitution of the United Mine 
Workers of America to the representative of the general organ- 
ization in Canada, and when he undertook to pay these coal 
miners the benefits for which they had contributed before any 
trouble arose, he was haled before the courts and punished. 

At present in Hamilton, Ontario, the machinists are on 
strike to enforce an award under the act and compulsory in- 
vestigation and expression of opinion of the commission. The 
commissioners refused publicity even to the conditions of the 
investigation and the conditions of labor. 

The Hydro-Electric Co., of Toronto recently rejected an 
award. The electricians struck to enforce the award, and, be- 
cause of the time the companies had to gather strike breakers 
and to prepare for any eventualitj^ the men were defeated. It 
may not be amiss to say that in Canada this compulsory in- 
vestigation act, a stay of the rights of the workers to leave 
their employment, is not called by the name of its author; it 
is no longer called the LeMeaux act; it is called the "lemmon 
act." 



258 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Now, I think that I have the right to say that I have, with 
my fellows, endeavored to be of service to our people and to 
help avoid and evade strikes and industrial conflicts. I think I 
am justified, without any appearance of vanity, to say that I 
have contributed something, that I have contributed as much as 
any other man in America to try to avoid strikes. Mr. Chair- 
man and gentlemen, there are some things that are worse than 
strikes. Manhood which has been deteriorated and undermined 
when it comes to the question of giving compulsory service is 
of far greater importance than a strike. The history of the 
world for centuries has been to make the workers free. The 
four j-ears of Civil War, costing hundreds of thousands of the 
best blood of our country at the time on both sides was fought 
out in order that slavery should be abolished. 

What is the difference between a slave and a free workman? 
The slave must work when his master wills, and when the 
State behind the master directs and enforces that will and 
whim. What constitutes freedom of men that work except that 
they own themselves and have the right to determine when they 
will or will not work? 

I do not undertake now, and will not undertake at any 
time, to underestimate the suffering which will come to many 
and the inconvenience which all will suffer if a strike is inau- 
gurated on the railroads. But I ask you gentlemen — we have 
got to live as the Republic of the United States when that 
strike is gone and is over and it is a part of history — shall we 
then find upon the statute books of the United States a law that 
for one moment declares that a man may not fold his arms and 
say, "I will not work," or to find that when he and two or 
more others shall agree that they will fold their arms, that 
thereby they have become criminals and susceptible to be tried 
and convicted and sentenced to imprisonment? Such a con- 
dition is intolerable and in conflict with the principles of a free 
republic. 

I trust that this legislation will not be enacted by the Con- 
gress of the United States. It is too serious a question. It 
is so fundamentally repugnant to eveiy conception of human 
liberty that the Congress of the United States should stay its 
hand and not attempt to go back — go back to its history since 
its existence in so far as white workmen are concerned, and 
since the proclamation of independence and the adoption of 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 259 

the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States r.boHshing human slavery. 

The interpretation of the Sherman antitrust law by the 
courts of our country by which that law was made applicable 
to the voluntary associations of the workers, organized not for 
profit, has been reversed by the solemn enactment of certain 
provisions in the Clayton law and the phrase, though it may be 
seemingly a phrase, yet the phrase is a declaration enacted into 
the law of the United States, the first sentence of section 6 of 
the Clayton Act declares that the labor of a human being is not 
a commodity or an article of commerce. That language is quite 
familiar to the Senator who sits at your left, Mr. Chairman — 
Senator Cummins ; it is his language which was incorporated into 
that law. And you undertake by the provisions of this measure 
now under consideration to repeal in effect that declaration 
and the provisions of that law, and you make of the labor of 
a human being a commodity or an article of commerce, and 
undertake to determine by law, with all its punishment, that 
the labor of human beings shall be regarded as a commodity 
and be held in abej^auce and stay, the human being to stay his 
activity, and compel him to work for a particular period against 
his will. 

I ask you, gentlemen, under the provisions of the bill — I an- 
ticipate that, of course, its provisions are subject to change and 
to meet any technical objection which may be urged — I am not 
urging the technical objections; I am urging fundamental ob- 
jections. 

We shall suppose — and I hope I shall not have justification 
for verification — that you will enact this law, and you say that 
the companies and the men shall stay their activities and not 
act in concert, but each for his own side — that is, to inaugu- 
rate a lockout or to inaugurate a concerted cessation of work. 
Now, take any of the railroad companies, or all of them, if you 
please, and the president and the vice presidents and the 
general managers and the superintendents shall, after you have 
enacted the law, resign rather than obey the provisions of the 
law. They will not inaugurate a strike or a lockout, but they 
will resign their positions. Is there any law that you con- 
template putting upon the statute books compelling them to 
give their services to the companies? Can you enact a law that 
will prevent them from resigning their positions? And yet it 



26o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

is contemplated that if the men in the active service of operating 
the railway trains, that if they resign they are amenable to the 
law. 

Gentlemen, in my judgment (and a judgment not biased or 
confirmed, but one the result of a lifelong experience of this 
great industrial problem) 3'ou are going the wrong way in 
trying to accomplish a desirable result — to prevent and avoid 
strikes and conflicts of this character. You are not going to 
prevent them, I repeat. But bear this in mind, gentlemen, that 
there is now going on over the whole civilized world a move- 
ment by which the workers, the masses of the people, are de- 
termined that they shall have a larger part in the activities and 
the privileges as well as the responsibilities of life — a devel- 
opment which is coming and is now at our doors. There is 
but one tangible way in which this can be accomplished, and 
that Is through a larger intelligence and cohesiveness among 
the masses of the people. A new order — the concept of human 
rights and human welfare and the full recognition of equality 
and equality of opportunity — must be recognized. 



OPINION OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION 
OF LABOR' 

The two essential features of the President's legislative pro- 
posals were the eight-hour workday and compulsory govern- 
mental institutions to regulate industrial relations in an occupa- 
tion not owned or operated by the government itself. The 
representatives of the railroad organizations felt the seriousness 
of the situation which confronted them. The proposal to estab- 
lish compulsory institutions is a matter that involves and affects 
the interests of all the wage-earners in the country. It is a 
revolutionary proposition totally out of harmony with our pre- 
vailing institutions and out of harmony with our philosophy of 
government. The representatives of the Railroad Brotherhoods 
asked for a conference with the representative men of the A. F. 
of L. then in Washington. This conference was the first held 
in the A. F. of L. new office building. Its importance is evident. 
In that conference the Railroad Brotherhoods were again as- 
sured of the support and the cooperation of the A. F. of L. in 

^ Report of the Executive Council, American Federation of Labor, to 
the Thirty-Sixth Annual Convention, November 13, 1916. p. 67-9. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 261 

their struggle, and in the hearing which took place before the 
Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce August 31, upon the 
legislation which President Wilson had recommended for enact- 
ment by Congress, the wishes and the demands of the wage- 
earners were presented by the representatives of the railroad 
organizations and by the President of the A. F. of L. The eight- 
hour workday was secured for the railroad men but the propo- 
sition providing for "compulsory investigation" carrying with 
it compulsory service, was not enacted. 

The bill introduced in Congress for the declared purpose of 
preventing strikes and interruption of transportation, is modeled 
after the Canadian Compulsory Investigations Act. It provides 
that during a period when the demands for changed conditions 
are under consideration it would be unlawful for the railroad 
workers to strike. During this specified period it is the purpose 
of this law to compel railroad men to work even against their 
will. 

This effort to again subject wage-earners to involuntary 
servitude has aroused the determined resistance of wage- 
earners generally. To their declarations against involuntary 
servitude the proponents of the legislation have replied that 
although a strike would be made illegal under the proposed law 
and strikers criminals, yet individual workers were not deprived 
of the right to quit work. 

This is a curious kind of reasoning that may make an appeal 
to those who have no definite knowledge of industrial condi- 
tions, but wage-earners know that individuals have ceased to 
exist from the standpoint of modern industry. The individual 
worker is a mere cog in industrial machinery, without voice in 
determining conditions that affect his work or his relations with 
his employer, and for an individual to quit work would have 
no effect at all except to leave him without employment. The 
individual worker has neither the power nor the opportunity to 
secure redress for his industrial wrongs or to establish justice. 
It is only through organized effort that wage-earners have 
the rights and opportunities of individuals or have any hope to 
establish better industrial conditions and standards of indus- 
trial justice. It is pure sophistry that only augments the sense 
of injustice that wage-earners may feel for industrial wrongs to 
allow them by the law the right of individuals to quit work and 
to declare that they can not agree with fellow-workers, that 
conditions are so bad that their only hope of justice and fair 



262 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

dealing lies in agreeing together to quit work, that is, to refuse to 
perform their usual tasks — to strike. 

The distinction between slaves and free men is that slaves 
must work as their owners will. They have no will of their 
own which they can enforce. Free men are masters and own- 
ers of their own labor power. They can not be compelled to 
work against their will. The exercise of their right not to give 
service is at their own peril, that is, loss of wages with what 
they may entail. 

Such a law providing for making criminals of men who 
cease work during the period of compulsory investigation of in- 
dustrial disputes would not prevent strikes. It would only make 
strikes illegal and strikers ci"iminals. It would revive again 
the old conspiracy laws. 

The only protection that wage-earners have is the right to 
withhold their labor power — the right to strike. To deprive 
them of this protection in the name of industrial peace would 
only result in increasing their feeling of injustice and in con- 
verting governmental agencies and institutions into agencies 
that bind them powerless against employers, however rapacious 
and inhumane. 

Compulsory institutions to prevent strikes are not new. They 
have been tried in other countries and found wanting. New 
Zealand established compulsory arbitration in 1894 after the 
close of a maritime strike that practically stopped transporta- 
tion on the island. The compulsory' arbitration law was a 
desperate effort to protect the so-called public. 

But strikes have not been abolished in New Zealand; many 
bitterly fought strikes have occurred. It was only last year 
that another general strike occurred, again tying up transporta- 
tion agencies. This strike was characterized by the most cruel 
and brutal conduct on the part of the so-called public. Many 
farmers joined gunmen, gangsters, and professional strike- 
breakers, armed themselves with pitchforks and other agricul- 
tural implements and marched against the striking workmen. 

Compulsory institutions either in the form of arbitration or 
wages boards have been established in all of the states of 
Australia and for the Commonwealth, but in none of the states 
or in the Commonwealth have strikes been abolished or is 
there any reason to feel that this principle has solved the 
industrial problem. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 363 

The wage-earners of the United States will oppose any 
proposition to impose upon them compulsory institutions which 
disguise involuntary servitude. They hold that the principle in- 
volved in voluntary institutions is the key to personal and in- 
dustrial freedom and that this principle is of more importance 
to them than any other consideration. 

The immediate problem involved is a class problem but the 
principle involved in compulsory institutions, even for a class in 
our Republic, is of concern to the whole Republic, for we 
know that the Republic can not be maintained part free and 
part slave. 

Involuntary and compulsory labor once enforced, even for a 
single hour, will not halt at its temporary enforcement but 
will go on and become permanent. 

In human institutions when a wrongful course has been pur- 
sued it inevitably is held or driven on to its logical conclusion 
of error. There then is no retrieving except by a convulsion 
brought about by a revolution. 

The human labor power which this law compels wage- 
earners to give to employers against their will is inseparable 
from the body and the personality of the wage-earners. It is 
part of the men and women themselves. They can not be 
forced to work for an employer against their wills without re- 
ducing them to the legal condition of slaves and transforming 
their minds and spirits into those of slaves. No more dan- 
gerous proposition has ever been proposed than this compul- 
sory investigation measure. 

Problems of industrial justice and redress for industrial 
wrongs can not be worked out by laws. Human relationships 
are involved and these can be adjusted on a basis of equity only 
through cooperation and mutual consent. Neither employers 
nor wage-earners can be forced by law to a state of mind and 
cooperation necessary for the protection of the rights and in- 
terests of the human element in production, transportation, and 
distribution. 

The institutions for achieving industrial justice and indus- 
trial freedom must be agencies that permit of the freest and 
best development of the people, for establishment of justice and 
freedom come only through the growth and development of 
right thinking and right living so that opportunities for freedom 
and justice are used for the best interests of all. 



264 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

In only one state of the Republic has there been a law pro- 
viding for compulsory investigation of industrial disputes. That 
law was enacted in Colorado in 191 5 and has been discussed in 
the following issues of the American Federationist : October, 
1915; December, 1915; June, 1916; October, 1916. 

As a result of their experiences under this law the trade 
unionists of Colorado in their convention held at Colorado 
Springs in August, 1916, declared emphatically against the law 
by practically unanimous vote^that is, with only one dissenting 
voice — and have pledged themselves to work for the repeal of 
the law. 

It should be our aim to aid our fellow-workers of Colorado 
in their laudable purpose. 

The action taken by the Colorado trade unionists in August 
is identical with that taken by the Canadian trade unionists in 
their Trades and Labor Congress held in September, 1916. 

For many years those who were personally affected by the 
operation of the Canadian law have denounced the principle 
upon which it was based, but the opinion never became general 
enough in Canada to become the demand of the organized labor 
movement until the Canadian law had been extended by an 
administrative act to apply to a greatly increased number of 
workers in Canada. 

The experience of the workers during the past year under 
the extended application of the Le Meaux Act resulted in a 
practically unanimous demand on the part of the Dominion 
Congress that the law be repealed. 

This action of the Canadian trade unionists is dealt with in 
the report of the Secretary of the Canadian Trades and Labor 
Congress which is in the appendix to this report. 

We recommend that this convention taken an unequivocal 
position against compulsory institutions and in favor of the 
maintenance of institutions and opportunities for freedom. 



STATEMENT OF A. B. GARRETSON* 

The Canadian industrial disputes act was originally known 
as the "Le Meaux," and it is very largely referred to in that 
language on the other side. These four organizations [Railroad 

1 Statement of A. B. Garretson, President of the Brotherhood of 
Railway Conductors, at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Inter- 
state Commerce, August 31, 1916. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 265 

Unions] exercise international jurisdiction. We have been Le 
Meauxed almost as often as we have been Erdmanized, and the 
consequence is we speak from knowledge and not from hear- 
say. 

Our experience with the Le Meaux act is this : From the 
day it became effective I was in conference, and at a very 
crucial point, with the Canadian Pacific Railway. I was threat- 
ened with its provisions and it was so unknown to the presi- 
dent of the railway how it might work that that question was 
passed over on account of what he feared might come from the 
act. Afterwards he expressed his regrets to me that he had 
not waited and worked under it, while on the other hand I 
had burned a few candles before I learned what it meant. Here 
is what it has done : In 1910 Mr. Lee, of the Trainmen, and 
myself started the first of these collective bargainings in the 
East. We made the same demand upon all the railways east of 
Chicago and north of the Ohio River, including the Canadian 
lines east of Port William and Winnipeg. There were three 
Canadian lines, the C. P. R., the Canadian Northern, and G. T. 
About, I think it was, the 7th of January we commenced ne- 
gotiations with the first line in the States. Our two Canadian 
vice presidents were assigned on the day following to take 
charge of the three Canadian properties, leaving 72 on this side 
of the line. There was no collective deal. W^e took up each 
line by itself. On the first line the Federal mediators were 
called in and effected a friendly settlement. We then settled 
the second property on exactly the same basis without any out- 
side influence. On the third large line in the States we agreed 
to arbitrate, and the arbitration proceeding on that line con- 
sumed about 90 days. All of the other properties were handled 
individually. On the 19th day of July following we settled the 
last of the 77 properties in the United States, and on that night, 
at 6 o'clock p. m., the men left the service of the Grand Trunk 
road, and no one of the three is settled yet. 

That was the effect of the Le Meaux act. The Grand Trunk 
road seized the opportunity to reenforce itself with the hope 
of utterly defeating the demand of the men, and it has been 
the record of every industry to which it has been applied that 
we are the only men on the other side of the line who con- 
formed to its provisions. The other classes of labor utterly 
scorn acceptance of it unless they have an object to attain. 
They did not investigate. They struck and would let them 



266 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

investigate afterwards. It is made of Canadian workingmen 
a nation of lawbreakers, and it has bred a contempt for the law 
that is a menace to good citizenship. Moreover, the minister 
of labor, who was the real author of that bill, W. L. McKen- 
zie King, testified before the late Federal Industrial Commis- 
sion that there were not jails enough in Canada to hold the 
men who had violated it. 

There is indisputable testimony. Is it intended to make the 
American workingmen a class that have contempt for law, or 
is it intended by enactment to breed respect for the law? That 
is a question that you have to meet, because that phase of it 
is directly ahead of you, if such legislation is either con- 
templated or made eflfective. If j'ou will stop to remember, the 
law is a weak paraphrase of a certain New Zealand enactment, 
where it was said to be successful and to have the approval 
of labor, and it has. But what are the conditions there where 
it had its birth, where it has had successful application, when 
contrasted with those places to where it has either been trans- 
planted or it is proposed to transplant it? In the Govern- 
ment of New Zealand every agencj^ exclusive of the administra- 
tive, legislative, and judicial, is prolabor. It is a labor govern- 
ment from top to bottom, the only exception being the Gover- 
nor General ; but you are sufficiently conversant with the 
status of the English dependencies that are members of the 
imperial federation to know what real power a governor general 
exercises in such a colony. He is an interesting factor in a 
Crown dependency, but he exercises virtually no power in any 
vital question. It is a law that with all its agencies is actively 
favoring labor. How different a result can be obtained when 
you transplant it into Canada, or here, where every existing 
agency of government is passively or aclivelj' in great accord 
with the existing order. There is the difference. Every un- 
seen influence that has been referred to as all the elements 
of invisible government are hopelessly against it. Its fair ap- 
plication to many of the agencies of a visible government have 
in the past been likewise utilized. 

I do not know that I am a special alarmist in these things, 
but when a man has gone through the experience that I have in 
connection with questions of this character, I will admit that 
he does not acquire as high an opinion of the moral impulses 
and the active force of the consciences of a good many men as 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 267 

he started out with. There may be a great many men who are 
in possession of one of the qualifications at least that Csesar 
described as necessary for his wife to possess. They may be 
pure, but there is a great doubt if they are above reproach. 

I want to place on record here the protest of every laboring 
man represented by these brotherhoods against the possible pas- 
sage of anything that savors of making men stay at work dur- 
ing the period of what would happen here with the existing 
causes between the railways and their employees, assuming for 
the moment that a certain amount of disintegration would take 
place on the other side, or that they should play the game 
for all it is worth. 



NINE YEARS OF THE CANADIAN ACT 

Comment in the United States on the Canadian industrial 
disputes investigation act within the last six months has been 
at once abundant and diverse. "The wisest and most success- 
ful labor legislation anywhere adopted," Charles W. Eliot wrote 
of it. "A false step, reactionary, un-American," is the verdict 
of Samuel Gompers on its application to this country. These 
two remarks typify the discussion that has been going on since 
President Wilson first recommended to Congress that it pass an 
act similar in principle to the Canadian law. 

In the dominion, as in the United States, opinion is divided. 
As in this country, public officials and employers are lined up 
in favor of the act; but, contrary to the status of opinion in 
this country, organized labor is not unanimous in condemning 
it; nor do those groups of workers in Canada who criticize the 
act, follow the same line of argument as their fellow workers 
in this country. 

Interested citizens with hardly any exception approve the 
law. "The act has not been a panacea," said an editor of a 
large Canadian newspaper, "but it is a pretty good thing. It 
postpones the occurrence of a strike and gives sober-minded 
people a chance to exert moral influence in bringing the two 
parties to an amicable settlement." "The act is based on the 
principle of arbitration," declared a prominent prelate, "and, 

iThe experience with Compulsory Investigation and its application to 
the United States. Ben M. Selekman. Survey 37:746-54., March 31, 1917. 



268 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

therefore, is a very fine thing. It tries to do away with the 
strike altogether, because it brings the employer and employe 
together and in this way helps toward an understanding be- 
tween them before a strike may occur." 

The degree of public approval accorded the act can be meas- 
ured efifectively by the attitude of political parties. The Lib- 
eral Party is responsible for its existence, but the Conserva- 
tive Party, now in power, has declared, through the minister 
of labor, that it will not repeal the law in spite of some objec- 
tion from organized labor. It intends, rather, to amend and 
perfect it in order to insure more equitable and effective ope- 
ration. 

Executives of public utilitj' companies reinforce the general 
argument of public men with their own first-hand experiences. 
"The act is all right," declared a representative of the Ship- 
ping Federation of Canada, "because it prevents hasty action," 
and he went on to explain how it has helped to maintain a 
peaceful relationship between longshoremen and shippers in 
Montreal. 

"Now, suppose two or three labor leaders come in here," 
said an executive of a large railroad, illustrating the benefits of 
the act, "and they have a thousand men behind them. They put 
certain demands up to us and say: 'Here, you, give these to 
us or we'll strike by such and such a time.' Well, we can say 
to them : 'There is a disputes act on the .statutes ; you'll have 
to apply for a board or violate the law,' and thus they are pre- 
vented from taking precipitate action against us. 

"We had a recent case," he continued by way of concrete 
illustration. "The men demanded certain increase in their wages, 
and we informed them that we could not grant the rates desired. 
They then applied for a board and the report of the board was 
in their favor. For a time we hesitated to accept the report. 
But after considering everything— the condition of the labor 
market, etc., we decided to accept the award, because we knew 
that if the men struck, they would win. That's the beauty of 
the act. It gives us a chance to think over and consider all 
these things." 

Mining operators, on the other hand, while commending its 
principle, complain that the act does not work equitably for 
them, because the penal clauses cannot be enforced against their 
employes when the latter violate the law. 



1:;D JiTIil.'vL Dlol'L'i'^:. 269 

So far as lalior is concerned, the Canadian Federation of 
Labour has gone definitely on record as not only approving the 
law but favoring an extension of its provisions. At its last 
convention a resolution was adopted favoring compulsory 
awards. This body is, however, a small organization; its mem- 
bership consists of about 7,000. The international unions, on 
the other hand — those affiliated with labor organizations in this 
country — number over 100,000 wage-earners. We must look to 
the body representing these unions, the Trades and Labour Con- 
gress, which is affiliated with and corresponds to the American 
Federation of Labor and to the railway unions, for a more rep- 
resentative body of opinion. 

The maintenance-of-way employes and railroad telegraphers, 
who both singly and jointly have had the greatest experience 
with the act, are most enthusiastic proponents of it. So much 
are they in favor of it that, in 1912, they severed their affilia- 
tion with the Trades and Labour Congress because, in 191 1, the 
latter went on record as desiring its repeal. 

"As one who has had possibly the greatest experience with the 
act . . . ," A. B. Low, the former president of the Order of Main- 
tenance-of-Way Men wrote in 19 14, "I do not think it would be right 
for me to let an opportunity go by of saying a good word for the 
act. . . . We have invoked [it] in nine cases ... in which, when 
conferences between the officials and the representative of the employes 
failed to reach an agreement, a board was applied for an award made and 
accepted. . . . That our organization on both sides of the line 
knows by practical experience the benefit of the act may be judged by 
the fact that, at the Atlanta convention of the American Federation of 
Labor, our delegates introduced a resolution asking that similar legisla- 
tion be advocated . . . and passed upon by the Senate and Con- 
gress of the United States; and that, I am sure, is the opinion of our 
membership still." 

A prominent Canadian official of the Order of Railroad 
Telegraphers spoke to me in the same vein : 

"I feel that the act has been of distinct advantage to our organiza- 
tion. We have always secured favorable results by reference of disputes 
to boards. It has been especially helpful in case of small railroads. 
Last year, I negotiated twentv trade agreements. Th^ existence of the 
act with its threat of publicity was a great help to me in getting these 
agreements. In not one case did I have to take a strike vote, while 
officials of my organization in the states had to take many strike votes 
in their efforts to get similar agreements." 

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen in 
Canada is friendly to the principle of the act, but desires some 
changes in it. 

''Certainly in the case of public utilities," a prominent official of the 
Dominion Legislative Board of this union explained, '"ihe public interest 
is so vital that there ought to be an investigation before a strike or lock- 
out shall occur and the public ought to have an opportunity to acquaint 
itself with the facts. I am absolutely opposed to compulsory arbitration. 



270 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

That robs the workers of all their strength. But compulsory investigation 
is different. ... It may be that the disputes act has injured the 
interest of the workers. But that has nothing to do with the principle 
of the act. If there has been unfairness in its operation, the law ought 
to be amended." 

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers on the other 
hand, is a most bitter opponent of the act. Its legislative board 
expressed itself in no unmistakable language last November in 
this resolution: "That this board do all in its power to have 
the industrial disputes investigation act wiped off the statute 
books." 

"The opinion against it was practically unanimous," an official of 
this board explained. "While some of the men spoke of some minor bene- 
fits, yet all of them thought that there were no real benefits from the 
operaiion of the act. It simply caused a lot of delay and expense. Many 
times, when an adjustment committee would go to the railroad manager 
and say that they wanted to negotiate a new agreement, the manager 
would simply say: "Go and apply for a conciliation board under the dis- 
putes act." 

The Trades and Labour Congress, which includes within 
its membership the other craftsmen coming within the scope 
of the act, such as miners, machinists and shopmen employed 
on railways, street-car employes and longshoremen, also adopted 
an unfavorable resolution at its convention last November: 
"That we go on record as opposing the Lemieux [disputes] act 
in its entirety." This is a change from the original attitude of 
this body. When the act was first introduced in Parliament, it 
had the endorsement of the president of the congress, who was 
a member of Parliament, and in the convention of that year the 
principle of the bill v/as endorsed by a vote of eighty-one to 
nineteen. In every year following 1907 imtil 191 1, amendments 
were asked for to improve the administration of the law. In 
191 1, for the first time, the organization went on record as 
desiring its repeal, by adopting the following resolution unan- 
imously : 

Repeal Asked for by Labor 

"While this congress still believes in the principle of investigation 
and conciliation, and while recognizing that benefits have accrued at 
times to bodies of workmen under the operation of the Lemieux [dis- 
putes] act, yet in view of decisions and rulings and delays of the De- 
partment of Labour in connection with the administration of the act, and 
in consequence of judicial decisions like that of Judge Townsend, in the 
province of Nova Scotia, determining that feeding a starving man on 
strike {i.r., piving stiilce benefits] contrary to the act, is an offence under 
the act: Be it resolved, that this congress ask for the repeal of the act." 

In 1912 the resolution adopted in the previous year was 
repeated by the labor congress. In 1913, 1914 and 1915, the 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 271 

congress modined its position and went on record as desiring 
amendments, but in 1916, after long and heated discussion, they 
asked again for the repeal of the law. 

"The principle of the act is all right," one prominent union ofGcial 
remarked in explaining the last action of this body, "but you can boil 
it all down to a question of administration. The minister of labour has 
refused to establish boards in one or two cases and that 
men feel that he is not administering the law in their favor." 

"The delegates were so worked up over their grievances," writes a 
prominent representative of organized labor, also referring to the reso- 
lution "that they were iii no mood to distinguish between the principle 
of the act and its administration." 

The extent to which this is true can be inferred from the 
fact that the delegates rejected, without calm consideration or 
criticism, the measure drafted by their own solicitor as a sub- 
stitute for the present one, in order to meet the objections pre- 
viously raised by them. 

Representatives of this organization, together with members 
of the railway labor unions, complain about the difficulty of 
securing a report favorable to labor. 

"The very personnel of the boards are against the interests of the 
workers," said an official of the Machinists' Union. ''The chairman 
casts the deciding vote on these boards. In ninety-nine out of one hun- 
dred cases, the two members appointed by the employer and the men 
cannot agree upon a mutually suitable person. The minister of labor 
has to choose him, and he usually selects a judge or some professional 
man whose point of view is capitalistic and who has no sympathy for 
the working class. As a result, from the very beginning the chances are 
against getting a favorable decision for the workers. The chairman 
almost invariably lines up with the representative of the employer." 

It is interesting and significant that hardly any of the Ca- 
nadian trade unionists advance the argument heard in this 
country against President Wilson's measure — that such a law 
means compulsory servitude for the wage-earners. On the 
contrary, most of them approve of the principle of the law, 
and direct their criticism purely against administrative defects. 
Their objections are chiefly that the minister of labor has re- 
fused to appoint a board on one or two occasions upon the 
application of a local union; that delays have often charac- 
terized the appointment and the hearings of the boards; and 
that it is difficult for them to secure a favorable decision. 

Procedure Under the Act — Conciliation 

To understand the objections of organized labor in Canada, 
we ought to know the nature of the procedure under the act. 
Contrary to the common conception in this country, the dis- 
putes act has operated not as a "compulsory investigation," but 



2-/2 C(Jx\il'L'LSUi<Y AKl.n K,\ I'lOX ol' 

as a "conciliation" measure. That is, the machinery of the law 
is used to bring together the opposing parties under public aus- 
pices and to adjust their difficulties. The compulsory features 
of the act which impose a penalty for violation and the definite 
rules of procedure have not been emphasized in its administra- 
tion. For this reason, the use of stenographers at the hearings 
held in the presence of the boards has always been discouraged. 

"Experience in the administration of the act," say.s the regi.strar of 
the boards appointed under the act, in one of his reports, "has appeared 
to show that it is more effectively operated when freed, so far as pos- 
sible from the formal procedure suggestive of the ordinary judicial 
court. The taking of sworn evidence 'with stenographer's report has been 
particularly discouraged as having proved far from conducive to an 
amicable adjustment of difficulties. . . . The most obvious virtue 
of the act lies ... in bringing the parties together before three 
fellow-citizens of standing and repute . . . where a free and frank 
discussion of the differences may take place and the dispute inay be 
threshed out. . . . Granting that such discussion and investigation 
take place before a strike or lockout has been declared and that the 
board acts with proper discretion and tact, the chances are believed to 
be largely in favor of an amicable adjustment. . . ." 

The minister of labor prefers to have the law operate as a 
flexible, conciHation measure. He has taken the position that 
he will not estabUsh a board when the cause of the dispute is 
the desire for recognition of a union on the part of the em- 
ployes. He will not grant one when the w-orkers of several 
employing companies apply for one, and when these companies 
will not agree upon a joint representative; and in cases where 
two unions may be organized and struggling for supremacj', if 
one of these organizations objects to such procedure. 

The conciliatory spirit and flexible manner in which the act 
has been administered has probably been responsible for the de- 
lays of which organized labor complains. The oflicial reports 
of the Canadian Department of Labor indicates that at times 
long periods have elapsed between the application for boards, 
their constitution and the rendering of their reports. 

Ninety per cent of the boards established have been applied 
for by employes, whose custom is to recommend, usually, their 
representative in the application. Under the law, five days are 
given to the employers for the nomination of their representa- 
tive. Five additional days are allowed the two members so ap- 
pointed to select a chairman. The board should be completely 
established within fifteen days after receipt of application. The 
minister of labor has discretionary power to extend the length 
of these periods and generally does so. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 273 

Thus of the 161 boards that have been constituted in the 
last nine years, only sixty were established within the fifteen 
days. It took between sixteen and thirty-one days for sixty- 
six and between thirty-one and forty-six days for twenty-one 
boards to be constituted. For six boards, between forty-six 
and sixty-one days and for eight boards, more than sixty-one 
days elapsed. 

The workers think their cause suffers also from long periods 
elapsing between the application for boards and the filing of 
their reports. For only twelve, or about 8 per cent of the dis- 
putes, was this period less than thirty-one days; for forty it 
was thirty-one to forty-six days ; for thirty-six, between forty- 
six and sixty-one days; for eighteen, between sixty-one and 
seventy-six days. For an additional twenty-two, between 
seventy-six and ninety-one days; and for thirty, or about 19 
per cent of the cases, more than ninety-one days, or three 
months, were consumed between the application for a board and 
the rendering of the final report. For three cases this infor- 
mation is not available. 

In reply to the complaints of organized labor with reference 
to these delays, officials of the Department of Labour main- 
tain that, considering the vast distances over which they have 
to operate, the boards are appointed quite promptly. If delays 
do occur, they are in accordance with the conciliatory spirit 
in which the act is administered. 

Files in the department show that employers very fre- 
quently delay the procedure by asking for extensions of time. 
"But we don't want to ride rough-shod over a company," ex- 
plained a prominent official of the department. "If they say that 
they will not appoint a representative, we tell them they must 
do so, and we try to reason with them that they should comply 
with the law. If they ask for an extension of time, we grant it 
to them and try to hurry the proceedings on as fast as pos- 
sible." 

How far these delays constitute a real grievance should be 
indicated to some extent by the character of the reports, when 
they are finally rendered. They should also show whether, as 
many trade union officials contend, it is difficult for labor to 
secure a favorable report because of the bias of the chairman, 
who, according to them, is chosen almost always by the minister 
of labor. 



2/4 COAIPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

For the nine-year period ending March 31, 1916, there were 
altogether f6i fully established boards which conducted hear- 
ings. ^ In ninety-two of these disputes, or over one-half, the 
reports were unanimous. In only thirty-five cases did the em- 
ployes' representative dissent from the majority report, and in 
twenty, the employers' representative dissented. In three cases 
both dissented from certain features of the reports, and in the 
remaining eleven either no decision was rendered or the nature 
of the report is not clearly indicated. 

This record seems to show that the unions need to revise 
their claim that it has been difficult for them to secure favor- 
able decisions. 

In only twenty cases did strikes occur or continue after the 
dispute had come within the scope of the act. In some in- 
stances, moreover, a basis of collective bargaining has been es- 
tablished between employers and their men, leading to the sign- 
ing of long-term agreements. 

Nor is it correct to say that the representatives of em- 
ployers and employes usually fail to agree on the third person 
to be nominated as chairman, thus leaving the choice to the 
minister of labor. In nearly one-half, or seventy-five, of the 
161 boards which were fully established, the appointment was 
made on the recommendations of the two other members of the 
board. Although the proportion of failures to agree on the 
nomination of chairmen seems large, the facts do not seem to 
bear out the contention that the administration of the act has 
injured organized labor in Canada to any great extent. 

So far, however, we have been considering the success of the 
act on the sole basis of those disputes which have been referred 
to it. It is here that the greatest danger of error lies. Most 
comments in this country on the operation of the act are based 
on the reports of the register of the boards. But these docu- 
ments contain an account mainly of those disputes which have 
been referred for adjustment under the act; they do not give 
the complete facts about the frequency and the importance of 
all the strikes which have occurred in those industries com- 
ing within its scope. For this information we must go to the 
special report on strikes and lockouts (covering the years 1901- 

1 The total number of application for boards has been iqi. In twenty- 
two cases no boards were established; in eight they were partially estab- 
lished. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ^75 

12) and the subsequent annual reports issued by the Depart- 
ment of Labour. 

This department was established in 1900 and has kept a rec- 
ord of industrial disputes which have occurred from January 
I, 1901, to March 22, 1916. Because of war conditions there 
have been few strikes in Canada in the last two years (ie., to 
March 31, 1916) and none of them has been serious. The 
disputes act became a law on March 22, 1907, and it will, there- 
fore, be possible to compare the importance of strikes in fairly 
equal periods before and after its operation. 

One difficulty must necessarily be encountered in using the 
comparative figures of the period before and after the act was 
passed as a measure of its success. It is all but impossible to 
say whether there would have been more or fewer strikes in the 
last nine years on public utilities were the act not in existence. 
Would those trade unions which have applied for boards have 
declared strikes more frequently, or would the usual methods 
of collective bargaining have averted the occurrence of indus- 
trial disputes? Or might not more strikes have been called by 
these organizations if the act did not provide a simple ma- 
chinery for the adjustment of difficulties? These questions 
must be borne in mind in judging the degree to which this law 
has helped to establish industrial peace in Canada. 

The particular problem for which the act was devised was 
industrial unrest in coal mines. In 1906 a prolonged strike 
occurred in the western coal fields threatening a fuel famine 
just when the usually severe winter was approaching. In the 
province of Saskatchewan the coal supply had been almost ex- 
hausted and the settlers scattered in the small towns and large 
prairies were facing the danger of freezing to death. The local 
authorities could do nothing to end the dispute and finally ap- 
pealed for federal intervention. W. L. Mackenzie King, then 
deputy-minister of labor, was sent by the government and suc- 
ceeded in bringing about a settlement. So much was he im- 
pressed with the suffering that a prolonged strike in this region 
might cause that he recommended the enactment of a law by 
means of which "all questions in dispute might be referred to a 
board empowered to conduct an investigation under oath, with 
the additional feature, perhaps, that such reference should not 
be optional, but obligatory, and pending the investigation and 



2/6 COMPULSORY ARBITKATIOX Ol" 

until the board has issued its finding the parties be restrained, 
on pain of penalty, from declaring a lockout or strike." 

Working Days Lost in Mining Through Strikes 

No. in thousands Per cent, of days 

of days lost in all industries 

1901 56 9 

1902 10 8 

1903 440 36 

1904 10 4 

1905 114 S3 

1906 i88 Sa 

1907 203 33 

1908 16 2 

1909 711 8a 

1910 377 S3 

191 1 1. 593 79 

1912 89 8 

1913 703 55 

1914 169 39 

1915 17 16 

Persons Employed in Mining 

Per cent, of persona 
No. in thousands in all industries 

1901 37 2.1 

1911 64 2.4 

The act was thus devised with particular reference to strikes 
in coal mines. A very important test of its efficacy is, there- 
fore, its success in diminishing the social cost of industrial dis- 
turbances in this industry. 

The period during which the act has been in operation has 
been practically simultaneous with the one in which the United 
Mine Workers have attempted to extend their organization in 
the important coal fields of Canada. These coal areas are the 
Crowsnest Pass region, which embraces the southwestern por- 
tion of Alberta and the eastern portion of British Columbia ; 
Vancouver Island, on the extreme western end of British Co- 
lumbia; and Nova Scotia, the extreme eastern portion of the 
dominion. From the point of view of production the eastern 
and western coal fields are almost of equal importance, but 
from the point of view of consumption a strike in the western 
coal fields causes much greater suffering than does one in Nova 
Scotia. The winters are much colder and the per capita con- 
sumption of coal higher in the western provinces. The trans- 
continental railroads are largely dependent on these western 
mines for their fuel ; without them, it would be almost im- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 2■J^ 

possible to move the large wheat crops, the chief asset of 
the dominion. 

Serious Strikes in the West 

It is in this western district, the Crowsnest Pass region, that 
the most serious coal strikes have taken place, both before and 
after the act was passed. The United Mine Workers of Amer- 
ica entered Canada in 1902 and began organizing the miners 
in this region. In ipaG the first strike, under their auspices, 
the one which resulted in the passage of the disputes act, was 
called. 

The agreement which brought this strike to an end expired 
on April I, 1907. On April 9, these western miners applied 
for a board, and on April 16, while it was being constituted, 
they struck, this being the first violation to be charged against 
them. The board could do very little, but the deputy minister 
was again instrumental in bringing about a settlement. An im- 
portant coal-mining strike also occurred in Nova Scotia — not 
under the auspices, however, of the United Mine Workers — 
over rates of pay. The total time losses for strikes in coal 
mines for the year, the first after the act was passed, amounted 
to 188,360 days, or 30.3 per cent of the total days lost in all 
strikes in Canada for the year.2 

An agreement was signed in the Crowsnest Pass region for 
two years, but when it expired in March, 1909, a strike was 
again called "over the renewal of the working agreement in 
which were involved certain fine points of recognition rela- 
ting to collection of union dues" — the check-off, in other words. 
Here the use of the act was not invoked until the strike had 
been on more than a month, and for the second time the miners 
violated the act. Neither party accepted the report of the board, 
but after being out on strike for three months, the men re- 
turned to work and an agreement extending to March 31, 191 1, 
was signed. 

In this same year, 1909, the United Mine Workers entered 
into a struggle to gain recognition in Nova Scotia. In this 
province there had been for a long time a local organization 

2 It is the number of men involved and the time wasted that makes a 
strike costly. The Canadian Department of Labour has reached a com- 
posite and most satisfactory measurement by multiplying the number of 
days in which the particular industry was idle by the number of men on 
strike and has thus worked out what might be called "men-days" or, as 
they are termed in the Canadian reports, "working days" lost. 



278 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of miners known as the Provincial Workmen's Association, 
and it appears that the strike resulted in a fight for supremacy 
between the two unions, with the operators favoring the local 
rather than the international organization. 

The strike was centered in three places, Glace Bay, Spring- 
hill and Inverness. In the first two places the men applied 
for boards before they ceased working, but in Inverness the 
act was completely ignored. In the latter place the strike lasted 
for some months, at Glace Bay from. July, 1909, to April 1910, 
and at Springhill from August, 1909, to May, 191 1, a period 
of almost two years. In all three of these places riots occurred 
and "troops were stationed for a considerable time at each 
point." The United Mine Workers were defeated in this fight 
for recognition, but these serious strikes conducted by them 
were mainly responsible in 1909 for over four-fifths, and in 
1910 for over one-half, of the total time losses of each year. 

On March 31, 191 1, the agreement signed in 1909 between 
the United Mine Workers and the operators of the Crowsnest 
Pass region expired, and 7,000 miners went out on strike again 
without applying for a board until the strike had been on for 
some time. "The crucial point, as in 1909, was the 'check- 
off.' " This strike, together with the one that was prolonged 
from 1909 in Springhill, N. S., and a few minor ones, made the 
total time losses in 191 1 for strikes in coal mines 1,592,800 
working days, or 78.9 per cent of all the working days lost in 
all strikes occurring during the year. 

On September 16, 1912, the disputes act was completely 
ignored and a struggle began between the United Mine Work- 
ers and the mine operators of Vancouver Island. The chief 
demand was "recognition." This strike was not called off until 
August 19, 1914, nearly two years later. As in Nova Scotia, 
the United Mine Workers appear to have been defeated, but 
mainly because of this strike half a million working days were 
lost in 1913, or 45.7 per cent of all the working days lost in all 
of the strikes occurring during the year. 

Thus the act does not seem to have an effective hold on the 
coal-mining industry of Canada. During 1916 some half- 
dozen strikes occurred in mines distributed practically over all 
of the coal fields of Canada. In only one case was the dispute 
referred to a board for adjustment. In the Crowsnest Pass 
region, in spite of the fact that the agreement signed between 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 279 

the miners and operators did not expire until March i, 1917, 
they struck twice last year, in complete defiance of the act, 
for a "war bonus" because of the abnormal rise in the cost of 
living. 

In all for the six-year period before the act was passed 
thirty-eight strikes are recorded in coal mines, involving an 
average loss per year of 121,331 days or 26.4 per cent of all the 
working days lost in all strikes. In the nine-year period sub- 
sequent to the passing of the act, coal miners struck thirty- 
seven times involving an average loss per year of 419-223 days, 
or 46.9 per cent of all the working days lost in all strikes. Thus, 
in the latter period, in spite of the act, the average loss per 
year of working days in coal-mining strikes is about three and 
one-half times as great as before the law was passed, and the 
proportion of that total to all working days lost in all strikes 
almost doubled. 

The Act a Failure in Coal-Mining 

If we consider only the coal-mining industry, the conditions 
of which gave rise to the act, it has clearly failed to accom- 
plish its purpose of averting strikes. 

What proportion, it will be asked in criticism, do the miners 
constitute of the workers of Canada? If it is large, it should 
not be surprising that the mining industry is responsible for 
about one-half of the social cost of strikes. Unfortunately, the 
Canadian census does not give us this proportion each year. But 
it does give it for the years 1901 and 191 1, and the facts show 
very clearly how serious the problem of industrial unrest has 
been in the coal mines of Canada. In 1901, 2.1 per cent and in 
1911, 24 per cent of the total gainfully occupied population were 
engaged in mining (both coal and metal). In other words, 
while the miners have constituted only about one-fiftieth to 
one-fortieth of the gainfully occupied population, and while this 
proportion has been nearly constant, they have been responsible 
for more than one-four of the working days lost in industrial 
disputes during the period 1901 to 1907, and for nearly one- 
half of the working days lost during the period 1907 to 1916. 

The facts show that there have been strikes, and that there 
have been serious strikes in the coal industry in the period 
during which the act has been in operation. Although the act 
was intended primarily to prevent strikes in coal mines, it ap- 
pears that it has failed to remove this sore spot from the in- 



28o COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

dustrial organism of Canada. But before reaching a definite 
conclusion on the basis of these facts, the difficulty of meas- 
uring the results of such a piece of legislation should be borne 
in mind. Might there not have been more strikes and more 
serious ones but for the act? As a partial answer there is the 
fact that Nova Scotia, where as much coal is mined as in the 
western coal area, has been comparatively free from serious 
strikes with the exception of the period during which the 
United Mine Workers were active in that province. It should 
also be recalled that this union conducted an extensive cam- 
paign of organization in Canada during the years 1903 to 1914. 
There is the additional fact that the Provincial Workmen's 
Association, which has about 5,000 miners in its membership, 
has observed the law and has worked under agreements, adopted 
as a result of the sitting of boards, in disputes between them 
and the coal operators. There is, however, also the fact that 
this organization alwaj's discouraged strikes even before the act 
was passed, and for this reason many of its members left it in 
1909 to join the ranks of the United Mine Workers. 
Railroads and Other Public Utilities 

Til Canada, as in this country, there have been few serious 
strikes on railroads. Only one may be charged to the railroad 
brotherhoods during the last sixteen years, and that was called 
in 1910, three jears after the act was passed, when the trainmen 
and conductors on the Grand Truck rejected the majority re- 
port signed by their own representative. The railroad teleg- 
raphers have not struck once during this period, and the main- 
tenance-of-way emploj'^es conducted one serious strike in 1901, 
six years before the statute was passed. 

So unimportant has been the problem of railway disputes in 
Canada that, when the first draft of the act was introduced in 
Parliament, it did not include the railroads within its scope. 
Since the passage of the act, it is true that there have been 
seventy-five applications for boards in railway disputes, and in 
only six of these cases have strikes occurred. The question 
naturally arises, would the brotherhoods have called strikes 
more frequently had not boards helped to adjust the difficulties 
ensuing between them and their employers? This is not an 
easy question to answer, and yet it is fundamental. It is true 
also that the applicants must make a statement, when asking 
for a board, that if the dispute is not referred to a board or ad- 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 281 

justed by it, a strike or lockout will, to the best of their knowl- 
edge, take place. Does this mean that sixty-nine railwa}' strikes 
have been averted? 

It is conceivable, in the first place, that employers reluctant 
to grant the demands of their men would refer them to the act, 
without going through the complete process of collective bar- 
gaining with them. In fact this is, as we have seen, one of the 
chief complaints of the strong unions. In the second place, few 
strikes occurred in the railroads prior to the enactment of the 
law. Finally, there is the fact that freight handlers and other 
unskilled and more or less unorganized workers employed by 
the Canadian railways have struck in violation of the act. Thus 
we find that during the last nine years [i.e., 1907-1916] freight 
handlers have called sixteen strikes. In only three instances did 
they apply for boards, and that was after they had struck. 

Most of the representatives of the railroad employes inter- 
viewed thought that it was not the act which was responsible 
for the maintenance of industrial peace on the railroads of 
Canada, but rather the reluctance of the brotherhoods to strike. 

"I know that in the annual reports," remarked a representative of 
the locomotive cns^incers, "'the Department of Labour says that so many 
disputes and that so many strikes have been referred to boards and 
averted, but that isn't so. As a matter of fact, as far as I can remem- 
ber, since I have been in our organization, it never had a strike, even 
before the act was passed. It can't be said that there would be strikes 
if the statute did not exist. The railroad brotherhoods will go to any 
limits before calling a strike. We are constantly securing new agree- 
ments without applying for boards." 

Similarly most of them contended that negotiations between 
them and the railroad companies would result in the securing 
of agreements did no legislation exist. The act for them has 
merely offered the machinery of collective bargaining different 
in form, but similar in spirit, to their usual practice before it 
was passed. 

Street-car strikes show a decrease from ten for the period 
1901 to 1907 to four for the period 1907 to 1916. As there have 
been tAventy-one disputes referred to boards from this industry, 
and in only two instances did strikes follow, it does seem that 
the act has been successful in averting this serious and disas- 
trous type of dispute. Longshoremen called twelve strikes dur- 
ing the first period and fourteen during the second. 

The reports of the Department of Labour show for the first 
period— that is, before the act was passed — that 60, or 8.4 per 
cent of all disputes in all industries during that time occurred 



2Sj compulsory arbitration of 

in the industries grouped under the heading "general transport" 
(inckiding railway employes, freight handlers, longshoremen, 
coal handlers, teamsters and others commonly employed in 
transportation). These involved an average loss of 68,684 
working days per year, or 15 per cent of all the working days 
lost in all strikes. For the period after the act was passed, 
these reports give for the same industries 74 disputes, or 9.6 
per cent of all occurring during the last nine years, involving 
an average loss of 87,776 working days, or 9.8 per cent of 
all working days lost in all disputes. If we should include 
strikes in railway construction work (a class of work to which 
the act has not yet been applied but which is nevertheless a 
public utility) the proportion of working days lost, while re- 
maining the same for the first period, rises in the second to 15.7 
per cent of the total time losses in all strikes. Considering 
the fact that the proportion of Canadian workers engaged in 
transportation increased from 4.8 to 9 per cent between 1901 
and 191 1, we find that the proportion of days lost from strikes, 
after the act was passed, actually decreased. 

Results Among Public Utilities 

To summarize for all pubUc utilities, 108, or 15. i per cent, 
of the 716 disputes recorded between January i, 1901, and 
March 22, 1907, the period before the act was passed, occurred 
in those industries coming within its definition. Between March 
22, 1907, and March 22, 1916, the period during which the 
statute has been in operation, 127, or 16.5 per cent of the total 
of 768 disputes occurred in these industries. Not only was there 
a slight increase in the proportionate number of disputes, but 
working days lost, the best measurement of the price the public 
pays for strikes, show a much greater increase. For the first 
period the average loss of Avorking daj's per year due to strikes 
on public utilities was 201,502, or 43.9 per cent of the total time 
losses in all industrial disputes. For the second period the aver- 
age loss of working days per year was 581,936 (including rail- 
way construction), or 65.1 per cent of the total time losses in 
all disputes. 

Thus even when allowance is made for an increase in the 
proportion of workers employed, the social cost of strikes on 
public utilities has not been materially reduced. The analysis 
of these figures shows that there has been a marked increase in 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 283 

loss of time through strikes on coal mines. Transportation be- 
fore 1907 and since that time has been comparatively free from 
industrial disturbances. 

Violations of the Act 

As a voluntary conciliation measure, the act has been very 
successful, but the most serious indictment against it as a "com- 
pulsory investigation" act has been the failure to impose penal- 
ties for violations. As v/e have already seen, strikes were not 
averted or ended in twenty or about one-tenth of the total 191 
applications made for boards, but the most serious and impor- 
tant strikes occurring in the coal industry have been illegal; 
that is, cessation of work took place either before appljang for 
boards or during proceedings or without invoking the act. 

The Canadian act is a compulsory one mainly because pen- 
alties are provided for the calling of such illegal strikes, and 
the essential test of any compulsory law is the extent to which 
it is enforced. Yet it is in this very important aspect that the 
act has failed as a compulsory measure. The railway labor or- 
ganizations are the only ones who have strictly observed the 
law. In their efforts to organize the coal miners of Canada, the 
United Mine Workers have conducted their most serious and 
costly strikes in violation of it. Freight handlers and other un- 
skilled workers have frequently ignored it. Altogether, approx- 
imately eighty-four strikes on public utilities may be charged up 
as illegal, distributed approximately as f oIIoavs : coal mines 
thirty-four; metal mines fourteen; railroads four; freight hand- 
lers sixteen; street cars two; longshoremen fourteen. This 
may not be an accurate estimate, since the reports do not list 
strikes as illegal and the facts can only be inferred from the 
data in two separate documents. That the violations of the law 
have not been unimportant can best be seen bj" the fact that the 
legal disputes in coal mines — the industry for which the act was 
primarily intended — involved, on the average, about 866 em- 
ployes, while the illegal strikes involved, on the average, about 
890 miners. 

"If either an employee or an employer violates the law by causing 
a strike or lockout before an investigation has been held," commented 
Victor S. Clark in 1910, after having made a personal inquiry into the 
operation of the act, "he is practically immune from prosecution unless 
the other party to the dispute brings action in the court to punish him. 
In the districts where the law has been violated or evaded in these 
respects, there is a demand by the party that has suffered . . . that 
the government assume their prosecution. . . . "This situation . . . rai.ses 



284 COMPULSORY ARBITRAT10x^J ( »F 

an important question. If the men can strike with impunity in disregard 
of the law,' what is the value of the latter in preventing or postponing 
strikes? Will the act not fall in abeyance except in those minor and 
less acute disputes where there is least call for . . . intervention? Has 
a law any force at all that operates only by the tolerance of law-breakers? 
It should be recognized that expediency must constantly be consulted in 
pediency must constantly be consulted in administering such an act, but 
administering such an act, but it must constantly be consullcd in admin- 
istering such an act, but it would seem that the latter, though it may 
retain some residuary value as providing convenient machinery for pub- 
lic mediation must lose its distinctive character and its interest as ex- 
perimental legislation unless some way is discovered to secure the ob- 
servance of the clauses of deferring strikes and lockouts until an in- 
vestigation is made. Unless these clauses are enforced, the law becomes 
an ordinary' concilation act, burdened by the discredit of its unenforced 
provisions." 

The Department of Labour has taken the position that it will 
not prosecute for violation of the law. The registrar states the 
official position of the government in the Canadian Law Times 
for March, 1916: 

"There has been also, in industries coming under the act, a consid- 
erable number of strikes in disputes which have not gone before a board 
for investigation. Work ceased in these cases without regard to the act. 
Many of the serious coal-mining strikes in western Canada during recent 
years have occurred in this way. 

"What, it may be asked, becomes of the penalties prescribed for these 
apparent infringements of the statute? The reply must be that such 
cases have seldom gone to the courts. It has not been the policy of the 
successive ministers under whose authority the state has been admin- 
istered to undertake the enforcement of these provisions. The parties 
concerned, or the local authorities, have laid information occasionally, 
and there have been in all eight or ten judicial decisions. The mining 
industry has been the chief delinquent in the matter of infringements, 
and there have been occasional derelictions on the part of the lower 
grades of transport or shipping labour; in the higher grades of railway 
labour the act has ben well observed." 

Several prominent Canadians were asked whj^ the United 

Mine Workers, who have been responsible for the most serious 

violations of the act, have not been prosecuted. One of them, 

referring to the situation in the Crowsnest Pass region, gave 

a typical reply. 

"In a case of this kind," he said, "the act is powerless; what can 
you do? Here are about 6,000 men, most of them foreigners. They 
don't understand the act. They don't care for it. What are you going 
to do? Fine them? Well, they won't pay. Put them in jail — if you 
could? The coal won't be mined. As far as I can see, any legislation 
in the world wouldn't prevent a strike from occurring under these cir- 
cumstances." 

The records of the Department of Labour show, up to March 
12, 1915, only eight prosecutions. These have been relatively 
unimportant ones. Three were against employes of metal 
mines, an industry in which a strike, under ordinary circum- 
stances, does not cause much suffering. Two were against op- 
erators of small coal mines for illegally declaring a lockout. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 285 

One case, in which three coal miners were charged with aiding 
in calling an illegal strike, was dismissed. In another, at In- 
verness, N. S., a union official was convicted for giving strike 
benefits to the men who had ceased working without applying 
for a board. In one case, four miners employed by a small 
coal company were each fined $40 and costs or thirty days in 
jail. 

Penalties Not Enforced 

The evidence does not seem to show that an extensive at- 
tempt has been made to force those responsible for the calling 
of the important, illegal strikes to pay the penalties provided by 
the act. 

"The jrovernmcnt has never laid particular stress upon the penalty 
end of it," W. L. Mackenzie King, the author of the law, explained in 
1914 to the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, "the pen- 
alty part . . . has always been treated in much the same light as 
penalty for trespass. If the party affected wishes to enter an action to 
recover damages they may do so. . . ." 

The analogy between the penalties provided in this statute 
and those placed in a trespass law does not appear to be sound. 
Trespass law is framed to protect the individual against any 
infringements that may be made on his property rights. The 
Disputes act was intended to protect, not an individual party, but 
the public against the suffering caused by strikes on public utili- 
ties. A violation of this law is a crime against the public. The 
person guilty of such a violation should be prosecuted at the 
instigation of the public authority charged with the administra- 
tion of the act, in this case, the Department of Labour. 

"In speaking of the Canadian act as a failure as a 'compulsory in- 
vestigation' act,' a former Canadian official writes on this aspect of its 
operation, ''the alleged failure in compulsion is put down to the non- 
enforcement of penalties, whereas it was with a view to compelling in- 
vestigation where labor wished investigation as a means of securing a 
redress of wrong, and not compelling penalties, that the act v.ns framed. 
Let me explain the circumstances that led to the enactment of the com- 
pulsory investigation features of the measure. In the dispute in Alberta 
referred to in the article [i.e., the one leading to adoption of the law], 
we spent nearly a week trying to get the parties together. We spent 
nearly another week finding out from each what they were prepared 
to do. Meanwhile, settlers and others were freezing in their homes. 
We had no powers other than that of a voluntary conciliator to fall 
back upon. Had we had legislation providing powers of compulsory in-, 
vestigation, we could have effected in two days what took nearly two 
weeks. It was this experience, and similar experiences in other strikes, 
which made us seek to get from Parliament powers of compulsory in- 
vestigation, which meant to labor, power at the expense of the state, and 
with the machinery of the state back of it, to choose its own investigator, 
to summon witnesses, to compel the production of documents, to take 
evidence under oath, and to give to the public the fullest possible kind 
of a view of the case, including any injustices under which it might be 



286 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

suffering. This is the really important compulsory investigation feature 
of the act, not the penalties which relate to strikes and lockouts. Never 
from the time the act v/as passed when I had to do with it as registrar 
or as minister was there a single instance, that I can now recall in which 
when this compulsory investigation feature was invoked on behalf of 
labor, that it was not enforceable and applied. As a compulsory investi- 
gation act^that is to say, investigation of a dispute under compulsion 
at the request of either of the parties, labor or capital — never once dur- 
ing the liberal administration did its provisions in this particular fail, 
and where investigation took place, the results were for the most part not 
only beneficial to the parties, but very greatly so to the public as well. 
I think the same has been true under the present administration." 



THE CANADIAN DISPUTES ACT' 

For several years a number of well-meaning persons not 
members of labor organizations, have been advocating the pas- 
sage of legislation looking toward compulsory investigation in 
labor disputes, particularly when applied to what is known as 
public utilities. The subject has been brought more forcibly to 
the attention of the public mind during the past year because 
of the controversy between the four railway brotherhoods and 
the railway companies. The advocates of compulsory investiga- 
tion point out the wonderful success that has been obtained in 
Canada through the Canadian industrial disputes act, which law 
provides that no strike or lockout can take place until the gov- 
ernment has had opportunity to investigate. Violators of the 
law are subject to fines and imprisonment. 

To the casual reader compulsory investigation before a strike 
or lockout can take place, seems like a fair and equitable prop- 
osition and labor seems to have nothing to lose but much to 
gain under such a law. But the fact is that there is no equality 
of opportunity while investigation of a dispute is being made. 

The mere statement that a strike or lockout can not occur 
pending investigation would imply that the responsibility on 
both sides was equal — such is not the case. Labor is prevented 
from striking and the employer is supposedly prevented from 
locking out his workmen, but the employer can close his plant 
for any reason sufficient to himself. He may hold that his op- 
erations are improfitable. He may hold that it is impossible for 
him to secure material. He may hold that shipping facilities can 
not be secured. He may hold that new contracts are not avail- 
able, and many other reasons may be given showing the neces- 

1 James O'Connell, Second Vice-President American Federation of 
Labor, in Survey. 37:756-7- March 31, 1917. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 287 

sity of either closing his plant or materially reducing his force 
of workmen, thus laying off the leaders and active men whom 
he thinks are responsible for the agitation to improve conditions 
of employment. 

Again, the employer enjoys an opportunity under com- 
pulsory investigation to prepare for a strike. He has thirty 
days or longer for that purpose, while the Avorkmen can 
in no way fortify themselves, their position being practical- 
ly the same at the end of an investigation as at the be- 
ginning. There is, therefore, no equality of opportunity. 

Organized labor in the United States has declared unalter- 
ably against compulsion of any kind in labor disputes. We hold 
that labor should have the right to quit the employer for any 
reason or no reason. We hold that this view is in conformity 
with the constitution of the United States which prohibits com- 
pulsory servitude. If a man is therefore compelled to work for 
any period of time against his will, it is a violation of the con- 
stitution of the United States. He could no more be punished 
for the violation of a law that would compel him to work 
against his will than the violators of the Canadian law have 
been punished. It is a well known fact that no attempt has been 
made to punish a single workman in Canada. 

Thousands of workmen in Canada have violated the Cana- 
dian law, have gone on strike without notifying the government 
or requesting an investigation under the law. Others have 
struck while investigations were being made, and still others 
totally disregarded the awards and quit work. Not one of these 
workmen was fined or imprisoned. If all who violated the 
Canadian law were to be punished, the penal institutions of 
Canada would have to be enlarged. 

To compare Canada with the United States in population or 
in the number of its industries is either treating the matter as 
a joke or is an attempt to impose upon the intelligence of our 
people. What might work fairly well in Canada with its popula- 
tion of approximately seven million, all of one nationality, 
would not work in the United States with its one hundred mil- 
lion population made up of all nationalities. 

New York City is equal in population to the entire Dominion 
of Canada. More workmen are involved in one labor dispute in 
Greater New York than have been involved in all disputes and 
investigations that have taken place during the entire life of the 



288 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

Canadian compulsory investigation law. More adjustments have 
been reached in disputes between the employers and the em- 
ployes from voluntary mediation, conciliation and arbitration in 
Greater New York in one year than has been accomplished dur- 
ing the entire period the Canadian law has been in existence. 

Organized labor believes in voluntary conciliation, mediation 
and arbitration. If the employers will meet their workmen in a 
spirit of fairness, concede them the right of association and 
representation, then strikes will be reduced to a minimum. But 
the employers want compulsory investigation only because it de- 
lays strikes, thus placing themselves in a position to fortify and 
prepare in every way, to defeat the workmen in their demands. 
If this were not so why do they not meet their employes before 
the strikes or lockouts take place without having a law to com- 
pel them to do so? We dechne to be a party to the enactment 
of any law that will for one moment take away from us the 
right to quit work for either real or imaginary causes. 

The advocates of compulsory investigation say "there is a 
third party interested whose rights should receive consideration 
and protection." This third party is the public. If the public 
interested itself all the time, whether strikes were on or being 
threatened, this claim might hold true. The fact is, however, 
the public as a rule is not interested in the conditions under 
which workmen are employed, nor does it give much thought, 
if any, whether or not emploj'ers deal fairly or humanely with 
their workmen. It gives little thought to the question of the 
hours of labor, wages paid labor, or the conditions under which 
labor is employed. It interests itself little, if at all, in the proper 
inspection of factories, work shops, or mines. It cares little 
whether or not employers properly protect their machinery so 
that life and limb may be spared. It is not intensely interested 
in whether or not children are employed or in how they arc em- 
ployed. It makes little or no investigation as to the employ- 
ment of women in factories, work shops, or sweated industries. 
Its only aim is to see the trains running so that it may not be 
inconvenienced in traveling from one city to another. It sees 
only the smoke coming from factories but never looks within. 
It sees only products coming from the mill but never stops to 
think how these products are produced. It sees only the coal 
coming from the mines but never asks the conditions under 
which it is being mined. The pubhc may be an interested party 
but it is an extremely selfish one. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 289 

Why should organized labor cheerfully and willingly declare 
for voluntary servitude if it has practically nothing to gain and 
on the other hand much to lose? Under compulsory investiga- 
tion the employer has all the advantage; unlimited time to pre- 
pare for the strike ; right to discharge an employe ; right of 
reducing his force, thus giving him an unequal advantage over 
his workmen. At best compulsory investigation and awards are 
only a compromise. This much, organized labor has always 
been able to secure. The public, as indicated above, is interested 
only in peace and does not care whether labor secures just- treat- 
ment or not. Its slogan is, non-interruption and non-interfer- 
ence with business, commerce, finance and industry. 



THE RIGHT TO STRIKE^ 

The President desires the enactment of a law, not for the 
compulsory investigation of strikes, as many suppose, but for 
the investigation of the conditions that have brought the pos- 
sibility or the probability of a strike, before it can take 
place. He desires the enactment of a law containing pro- 
visions similar to those in the Canadian Industrial Disputes 
Act, which make it illegal for a strike or lockout to be 
ordered by either employee or employer before the causes 
leading to it have been investigated by the government. At 
its last annual meeting the Canadian Trade and Labor Con- 
gress — the A. F. of L. of Canada — passed a resolution, almost 
unanimously condemning it for the reason that it pinches 
only one foot, binds only one side of the industrial struggle. 

As such legislation actually works out, as is evidenced 
under the Canadian act, the employer invariably utilizes the 
period of delay that is specified for investigation to make 
preparations for a strike, hiring strike breakers, even import- 
ing them, in defiance of alien laws, so that when the period 
of involuntary service required under the act has elapsed he 
is in position, if the finding of the tribunal that has done the 
investigating upholds the contentions of the men to any de- 
gree, to repudiate the award, and to replace the forces of 
the men. In other words the act wholly and absolutely dis- 
poses of the tactical advantage that may lie with the em- 

1 Austin B. Garretson, President of the Order of Railway Conductors, 
Independent. 89:142-4. January 22, 1917. 



290 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

ployee, who is, of course, in the very nature of a strike, the 
attacking party. Almost any strike illustrates the fact that 
there is a psychological moment for striking — one that is 
just as important in industrial warfare as in international 
warfare; just as important to a strike, often, as Japan's attack 
upon the Russian fleet was to the Russo-Japanese war. An act 
of this kind renders valueless the greater part of the 
weapons of the laboring man. It is on that acount, primarily, 
that there is such widespread opposition to the enactment of 
laws of this character. In a word, it gives the employing 
side a great advantage. 

Strategically, this advantage works to the good of the 
other side in railroad strikes especially. In the first place 
this is true because the railroads are adept at providing on 
short notice a mass of statistical evidence that often over- 
whelms investigators who are dealing with matters as cgt^- 
plex as the compensation given railroad employees, and the 
conditions under which they serve. This evidence, mo^-e- 
over, is often so skillfully presented that it is deceptive. In 
the second place, the railroad brotherhoods have always 
gone forward on the theory and practise of compromise. In 
dealing with their employers they have been content with 
almost any appreciable proportion of that which was de- 
manded. The willingness of the brotherhoods to compro- 
mise in this manner (growing out of the quasi-public char- 
acter of the service) has often brought upon them the criti- 
cism of other crafts, some of whom condemn such willing- 
ness to exert every means toward settlement before ap- 
pealing to the strike. This situation is reflected also in the 
fact that the experience of the railroad brotherhoods in 
strikes is very limited. The two great strikes in America, 
in 1893 and 1877, were not conducted under the auspices of 
the brotherhoods. There has been nothing aproaching a 
general tie-up since. 

The influence of every combination of men in this country 
who are employers of labor and of men who are in the con- 
duct of enterprises commercial in their character, from which 
profit is derived, is lent to the enactment of a measure which 
will permit the continuance of profits without actually in- 
teresting themselves as to the facts of whether or not the 
welfare of the worker is safeguarded thereby. To such men 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 291 

the acme of success is the continuance of profits or the in- 
creasing of them. And as what may be described as "the 
master class" is in control of most of the journals through 
which public opinion is exprest and by which public opinion 
is formed, it becomes readily apparent that the real will, 
the real desire and the real purpose of the great majority of 
the citizens of the republic rarely come to the surface at all 
and then only in fragmentary form. When industrial strife 
creates suffering and hardship, complaints as to these hard- 
ships seldom originate with those who suffer real hardship, 
but almost wholly from those who suffer nothing but 
diminution of profit. When there is a cessation of street car 
service in a great city the demand for resumption of peace, 
regardless of the terms of settlement upon which resump- 
tion may be founded, comes not from the working people 
who are compelled to walk or avail themselves of make- 
shift transportation, although they make up nine-tenths of 
those who supply the revenue of the street car companies, 
but almost wholly from those whose profit suffers by the 
inability of the purchasing class to continue to contribute to 
the endless chain of merchandizing or manufacturing. It is 
significant, in other words, that in these cases and in most 
other cases where the public interest is at stake a cry is 
always made in the name of the suffering public, when in 
fact the actual suffering public voices no protest and accepts 
the hardship as part of the heritage of men who labor. 

This cry on behalf of the suffering public has been raised 
by the employing class in behalf of the enactment of the 
President's proposed bill. 

What labor men resent in this proposed bill is the utiliza- 
tion of forces of any character v/hatsoever as weapons by one 
side or the other in a strike because labor has learned that 
the interest of the government is in peace and in profits. The 
police forces and the military, both state and national, in- 
stead of being utilized only for the purpose of seeing that 
each of the combatants in industrial strife uses only legiti- 
mate means, are almost invariably used as weapons for the 
purpose of furthering the interest of the employing class at 
the expense of the employee. Out of this long established 
practise grows the feeling on the part of the laboring man 
against the expansion of military power either upon the part 



292 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

of the state or nation. Experience has taught the laboring 
man that military power is more often directed against him, 
to break down his resistance to oppressive conditions than 
against any outside foe. He therefore regards any legisla- 
tion that makes possible any greater measure of oppression 
as directly inequitable, as, in fact, the worst form of pre- 
paredness. The correctness or incorrectness of this view on 
the part of labor is easily tested by one rule — by an examina- 
tion of the arrests and convictions made in strikes • foi a 
class of offenses that if no strike were in existence would not 
be considered as offenses. This examination will show you 
how the peace power of state and city are pressed into in- 
dustrial conflict againct the weaker side. The same use of 
the supposed peace power is indicated by the existence of a 
large number of agencies which veil their real purpose under 
the name of detective associations, yet draw the larger i art 
of their revenue from and find their principal field of acti\ity 
in the furnishing of either professional strike breakers or 
armed guards, all of whom usually carry arms in utter de- 
fiance of the statutes of the various states in which their ac- 
tivities arc exercised and against whom no legal action is 
taken. 

Taking these facts in conjunction with those previously 
referred to, one need not seek further to find causes for the 
hostility of laboring men generally, both union and non- 
union, to the enactment of further legislation formulated for 
the purpose, as they believe, of further limiting the abilities 
of the working man to better his own condition. 

The greatest difficulty that confronts final disposition of 
the strike between the man who has and the man who has 
not lies in our methods in dealin-g with it, and in our refusal to 
look issues squarely in the face. Indisputable evidence of 
the existence of that fundamental error is found in the fact 
that now, at a period of unprecedented prosperity in this 
very metropolis, one-twelfth of the funerals end at the 
potter's field. That almost unbelievable thing is fact. 

It is needless to go further than this grewsome fact to 
establish the reason for the existence in the minds of men 
from the paths of labor as to the inadequacy of the present 
method of the distribution of the results of labor, and it is 
not difficult to understand that the mass of men who realize 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 293 

that they have not received what they believe to be a fair 
recognition for their Avork will hold that democracy as ex- 
emplified in our government has been a failure. To men 
seeing things from this point of view it is inevitable that the 
theory of direct action would have great appeal in the face 
of the enactment of laws such as the president recommends, 
or of any law that adds to the machinery by which they be- 
lieve that their rights are disavowed, their efforts nullified 
and their reward for toil made non-existent. 

Much has been said and v^^ritten about the surrender of 
government to an oligarchy of labor. 

Capital has been made of the fact that Congress passed 
the Adamson law in the interest of a little group of 400,000 
men, yet in the years gone by, legislation of the character 
of special privilege has been passed by the supreme legisla- 
tive body at the behest and in the interests of groups of 
men composed of not one-one-hundredth part as many as 
are represented here. Millions of acres of land, the world's 
supply of standing timber, water rights, charters for utilities, 
deposits of coal, a supply of oil to serve the world, have been 
exploited by these very self-elected spokesmen of a long 
suffering public, now raising their voices in denunciation of 
an act humanitarian in its .character, secured, it is true, 
through the efforts of 400,000 men, but insuring to the bene- 
fit of untold millions who now labor hours still out of all 
proportion to the stipend paid. 

This proposed law is a step backward. The Adamson 
law was a step forward even though it has brought forth, as 
all laws do that are passed in the interest of others than the 
chosen few, a plentiful crop of criticism as to its unfairness, 
its injustice and its impracticability. It seems inevitable that 
in the future there must be more legislation of similar char- 
acter, and less of the kind that guarantees to Shylock his 
pound of flesh. For the tendency of the age is toward recog- 
nition of the rights, not the privileges, of the common man, 
regardless of the powers of either invisible government or 
entrenched privilege, and the coming years surely will see 
the enactment of laws which will make impossible the condi- 
tion that in a period of unrivaled prosperity contributes its 
benefits to the privileged few while the great body of citizens 
are in a more depressing condition because of high prices 



294 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

than they were in preceding periods of depression. The 
Adamson law is such a law. Any law that deprives either 
side of the opportunity to exercize to the fullest every leiti- 
niate energy it possesses is not. 



THE OBJECTIONS OF ORGANIZED LABOR TO 
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION' 

I have been requested to make a statement, wherein will be 
set forth the objections of organized labor to compulsory ar- 
bitration. The objections that I shall offer are specifically ob- 
jections to compulsory arbitration, and may or may not include 
objections to the Canadian Act or similar laws upon the sub- 
ject. You will notice that in my remarks I refer to the mental 
attitude of the arbitrator and state that as a basis of objection 
to arbitration; in fact, as evidence that arbitration is not an 
equitable manner of disposing of wage questions, because so 
much depends upon the mental attitude of the individual whose 
judgment is asked. 

Railroad employees, and all people who work for wages, are 
opposed to so-called compulsory arbitration because it is but an 
ill-concealed effort on the part of the master class to deprive 
labor of its economic power. Under the guise of abitration it 
is proposed to fix wages and working conditions by judicial com- 
pulsion. 

Whenever and wherever by judicial process labor has been 
controlled, the employer has become a master and his employee 
a peon, serf or slave; for now, heretofore and hereafter the 
master class molds the mind of the judiciary. An arbitrator 
created by law is no less a judge, and where appointed by gov- 
ernmental authority becomes a dictator. Should his dictum be 
enforced by law his reign is no less that of a tyrant, though he 
may he a benevolent tyrant. 

The American constitution may be cited as the first award of 
an arbitration of labor's rights. A majority of the colonies 
represented at the Philadelphia convention had abolished slavery. 
Most of the delegates regarded the slave institutions with abhor- 
rence, yet the class consciousness of those same delegates 

*W. S. Carter, President, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and 
Enginemen. Proceedings. Academy of Political Science. 7:36-43. January, 
1917- 



INDUSTRL\L DISPUTES 295 

caused them to refuse to interfere with the business interests 
of the employers in the remaining colonies where slave labor 
was a source of profit to the master class, and slavery was made 
an American institution by constitutional law. Until the civil 
war the American master class maintained the right of owner- 
ship in human beings. 

It has not been long since railway employees favored legal 
measures for conducting voluntary arbitrations of wage dis- 
putes. The first federal arbitration law, known as the Erdman 
Act, was favored by railroad employees, although opposed as 
a dangerous precedent by workers in other crafts. Its succes- 
sor, the present Newlands Act, was earnestly supported by rep- 
resentatives of railroad employees. Yet practically all railroad 
employees now look upon the law with fear and suspicion. They 
have learned by bitter experience that arbitration under the 
federal law is not fair to the employees. Through disastrous 
arbitrations they have discovered that this insidious class con- 
sciousness of business interests permeates our whole social 
structure. They have learned that in the selection of arbitrators 
only those of the master class, or sympathetic therewith, are 
eligible, and that a financial interest in the results of an arbitra- 
tion better fits a man to serve as arbitrator. 

If the eight-hour day, questions of wages and other such 
controversies are to be adjusted by arbitration, and there is an 
earnest desire to secure an unbiased award, no person connected 
with or in sympathy with the workers or the servant class would 
probably be appointed as a "neutral." No person connected with 
the employers or in sympathy with the master class could be 
truly neutral. Now that the master class provides princely sums 
for endowment and pensions in the great educational institu- 
tions, we find learned men summarily discharged for partisan 
leanings toward the servant class. Who is there left? 

In the last arbitration conducted under the present law we 
found a gentleman selected as a neutral arbitrator whose social, 
business and political standing was such as gave credit and dis- 
tinction to the proceedings. Subsequently, but before the award 
was made, we discovered that as trustee or director he had 
great financial interest in the matter he was to adjudicate. We 
learned that as director of one trust company he held $12,500,- 
000 of first mortgage bonds of one of the railroads party to the 
arbitration. In similar manner vast amounts of securities of the 



296 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

railroads interested in the arbitration were owned or controlled 
by financial institutions with which he was officially connected. 

Having knowledge of his utter lack of sympathy for the 
contentions of the emploj^ees, we filed a protest with the Federal 
board of mediation and conciliation against his continuance on 
the arbitration board. In reply we were informed that "a 
knowledge of that fact would have been favorable rather than 
otherwise to his appointment, and nothing has been brought to 
our notice since his appointment as an arbitrator which, in our 
opinion, disqualifies him as an arbitrator." 

A public opinion has recently been created through the lav- 
ish expenditure of money by a junta of railroad financial in- 
terests, with their headquarters in this city, that makes it almost 
impossible for railroad employees to secure justice through any 
tribunal. In their efforts to convince the American people that 
railroad employees should not secure an eight-hour day, we 
have reason to beheve that many millions of dollars were ex- 
pended in an attempt to suborn the public press of the nation. 
We have evidence that in this publicity campaign these railroad 
financial directors employed the advertising pages of more than 
3000 daily and more than 14,000 weekly papers. Before these 
millions were poured into the advertising coffers of these news- 
papers, many were friendly to our cause and a majority were 
at worst neutral. Almost immediately the editorial opinions of 
these same newspapers voiced sentiments similar to those ex- 
pressed in their advertising pages. Thus we see that with an 
effort to impose an arbitration of wage disputes the railroads 
seek to create a public opinion that will win for them the decision 
thereunder. If arbitration is to be enforced against railroad 
employees, the law should prohibit the use of money by rail- 
roads in thus "packing the jury." 

Aside from the fact that an arbitration award depends al- 
most entirely upon the mental attitude of the so-called neutral 
arbitrator, an award favorable to employees is never applied 
justly. In any arbitration of a controversy between railroad 
employees and their employers the latter administer the award. 
What would be thought of the effectiveness of a court judg- 
ment enforced only b,y one of the litigants? Yet this is how 
arbitration awards are put into effect. What are intended to be 
wage increases are juggled into wage reductions by railroad 
officials, whose authority in the matter has never been ques- 
tioned. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 297 

To sum up the objections of working people to any form of 
compulsory arbitration, I may brief them as follows: 

(i) It is but a scheme by which the employer hopes to gain 
a mastery over his employees: 

(a) By making strikes illegal, and thus depriving work- 
ing people of their only economic power. 

(b) By suppressing labor organization, through depriv- 
ing them of the power to effect their purpose. 

(c) By creating conditions of labor through judicial 
process, which process the master class always has in- 
fluenced and always will greatly influence. 

(2) It is but the expression of a selfish desire: 

(a) To avoid the personal inconvenience incidental to 
all strikes, without regard to the injustice against 
which the workers are struggling. 

(b) To avoid the financial loss to business interests en- 
gaged in production and transportation, regardless of 
the financial loss that may fall on the workers. 

(3) It is but a symptom of the mental and moral degenera- 
tion through which all great and prosperous nations have passed 
when : 

(a) Fundamental principles of individual liberty are 
forgotten. 

(b) That for which the founders of liberty were hon- 
ored becomes a social menace. 

(c) The struggle for wealth overshadows all else, 
with consequent disregard for the rights of the 
working classes. 

(4) It is a deliberate effort to deprive working people of 
their economic power: 

(a) Through legislation nominally to preserve public 
peace. 

(b) Through an artificial public opinion, largely 
created by those who control the public press. 

(c) Through a presumption that for public con- 
venience the federal judiciary will find a method of 
depriving all working people of their constitutional 
right to escape involuntary servitude except as 
punishment for crime. 

This sums up the objections not only of organized labor, 
but of all labor against compulsory arbitration. Some of 



298 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

these statements I believe to be extreme, perhaps not 
founded on fact; nevertheless many, many working people 
believe them to be true, and so believing, have a right to 
object vigorously to compulsory arbitration. 

Pardon me if I draw a parallel. There is a general pub- 
lic demand that there be no strikes such as to bring upon 
the country what has been described as disaster; therefore, 
a law is sought to suppress industrial unrest that may result 
in these disastrous strikes. That is the theory of all mon- 
archial forms of government with regard to political unrest. 
If that theory could have been enforced during the War of 
the revolution there would have been no United States of 
America. From a British point of view the social unrest 
that may result from a strike is not comparable with the 
political unrest that resulted in the formation of these 
United States. Any effort to secure political liberty would 
have been suppressed for identically the same reasons and 
with just as good argument as any effort to secure indus- 
trial liberty. 

In America we have a democratic form of government 
whereby presumably every citizen votes his will. I am glad 
to say that we had many more citizens voting during the 
last election than ever before. I refer to the women. There- 
fore, in this country political unrest is perhaps satisfied by 
the opportunity to go to the polls and change that against 
which we protest or complain. But in monarchial forms of 
government, in past centuries, and still today in some coun- 
tries, no such opportunity was given to the people. The 
governing class, wTio have always been the master class, 
truly believed that they were better qualified to legislate for 
the masses than were the masses themselves. In order to 
prevent the masses from attempting to legislate for them- 
selves, they deprived them of all legislative authority; and 
in order to preserve the peace of the land they shot as 
traitors any persons who attempted to gain liberty beyond 
that which the government had accorded them. Now I sub- 
mit to you that an effort in this country to deprive labor 
of its economic power to better its condition, receives its 
impetus in the same desire for peace that has held back the 
political rights of the human race for so many centuries. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 299 

There is a demand among all of us for peace. We would 
rather suffer untold wrongs than to engage in war, political 
or industrial. We are so constituted — and when I say "we" 
I mean the great mass of people — that we would rather see 
the workers deprived of that which is justly due them than 
be inconvenienced by a great strike that perhaps may prove 
a calamity. Whenever a nation reaches that point where 
the public convenience is used to suppress the individual 
rights of the people, then that nation has reached its zenith, 
and is on the downward path. If you and I are unwilling to 
suffer an inconvenience in order that someone may improve 
his industrial condition, then this nation has not fulfilled the 
purposes of those who created it. 

If during the present period the American public will 
agree to an evasion of the thirteenth amendment of the 
constitution and without protest see railroad employees sub- 
jected to involuntary servitude, then I predict that the day 
is not far distant when these same peace-loving people will 
submit to a loss of political liberty rather than make militant 
protest against that loss. I have not lost faith in the ju- 
diciary, as many working people have. I yet believe that an 
attempt to enforce compulsory arbitration upon the working 
people of this country, even those that are employed by the 
railroads, will be frustrated by the Supreme Court of this 
land. I do not believe that the Supreme Court of the United 
States will permit an evasion of the thirteenth amendment 
of the constitution, even though it be for the preservation of 
industrial peace. 



BRIEF EXCERPTS 

The Canadian law has no provision preventing employers 
from bringing in strike-breakers during the investigation. — 
Outlook. 94 : 648. March 26, 1910. 

Twice as many labor disputes, involving five times as 
many employees, are settled by voluntary boards in New 
York City every year as all the disputes that, the Canadian 
Compulsory Investigation Act has disposed of during its en- 
tire lifetime. — Ralph M. Easley, Review of Reviews. 55 : 190 
February, 191 7. 



300 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OK 

In my judgment the holding of any person in custody, 
whether in jail or bj' an officer of the law, against his will, 
for the purpose of compelling him to render personal ser- 
vice to another in a private business, places the person so 
held in custody in a condition of involuntary servitude for- 
bidden by the constitution of the United States. — Dissenting 
opinion of Justice Harlan in the Arago case. 

The compulsory feature of the Canadian Act has made 
more law breakers than all the jails in the Dominion of 
Canada could hold. In the nine years during which this act 
has been in existence, it has, according to official reports, 
dealt with disputes involving altogether only one hundred 
and forty six thousand employes, thirty two thousand of 
whom went on strike despite the law. — Bellman. 22 : 35. January 
13, 1917- 

A major strike of railroad employees is a species of civil 
warfare, and it is doubtful if it is a thing which public policy 
should tolerate, but I think that we have not yet reached the 
point where punitive enactments would have had nation- 
wide support or would have produced any better result than 
the machinery for investigation and full publicity which the 
[Esch-Cummins] Act provides.— /?ay Morris, World's Work. 
39 : 547. April, 1920. 

The right to strike for the purpose of improving working 
and living conditions has been recognized as a natural right 
to labor by all peoples from the dawn of civilization until 
comparatively recently. In the last analysis it is the only 
weapon with which labor can fight its battles for justice and 
human rights. It is the thing above all others which marks 
the distinction between industrial freedom and serfdom. 
Today, almost for the first time, it is seriously questioned. — 
F. C. Canfield, President Iowa State Federation of Labor, 
loiva Unionist, January 15, 1920. 

Moreover, arbitration may be voluntary or compulsory. 
Both the reference of the dispute to an arbitrator and the 
acquiescence in the terms of his award may be voluntary; or 
the reference may be voluntary and the award compulsory; 
or both the reference and the award may be compulsory. 
It is only arbitration providing for decree binding upon the 
disputants with which we are concerned. Arbitration with 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 301 

voluntary award is a whim. An award unsatisfactory to 
either party becomes binding upon neither. — Wilson Compton, 
American Economic Review. 6:325. June, 1916. 

If it came to me as an international officer of a union to 
recommend to the membership of our organization in Colo- 
rado as to whether they would continue employment until 
an investigation had been made by the state officials, thereby 
giving the employers an opportunity to recruit new forces to 
fill their positions, I should not hesitate one moment in say- 
ing, "Strike, and strike immediately; and we will then take 
up the question of any law which takes away from you your 
rights as free men." That frankly is our position in the 
matter. Peter J. Brady, Secretary Allied Printing Trades Coun- 
cil. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science. 7;3i|« 
January, 191 7. 

The antistrike amendment recommended to Congress by 
President Wilson ... is wholly to the advantage of the 
employers' class. A threatened strike would be held up in- 
definitely or at least until its force was spent in watchful 
waiting. Under this amendment a strike, if lawfully possible 
at all, would be robbed of its strategic advantages and 
doomed to inevitable defeat. A strike held up becomes as 
futile as a charge held up on a field of battle. But such a law 
could not be enforced against the will of the labor movement. 
All the laws and all the courts and governments on earth 
could not prevent a million organized workers from striking. 
— Eugene V. Debs, Literary Digest. 53 : 1582. Dec. 16, 1916 

Mr. Gompers has said before the Committees in the 
Senate and in the House what he said in 1916, that anti- 
strike legislation would not be obeyed, could not be enforced 
and that he, as President of the American Federation of La- 
bor, would not lend his influence for obedience to such a law. 
During the discussion of anti-strike legislation in 1916, Mr. 
Gompers said: "Law or no law, president or no president, 
such a law would not be obeyed." And testifying before a 
committee of Congress this year Mr. Gompers said: "With 
a full sense of my responsibility, I say that I should have 
no more hesitancy about participating in a strike after its 
passage than I do now. It wouldn't stop strikes; it would 
make law breakers." — Law and Labor. 1 : 23. December, 1919. 



302 COMPULSORY ARBITRATION OF 

If men can strike with impunity in disregard of the law, 
what is the value of the latter in preventing or postponing 
strikes? Will the act not fall into abeyance except in those 
minor and less acute disputes where there is least call for 
government intervention? Has a law any force at all that 
operates only by the tolerance of the law-breakers? It 
should be recognized that expediency must constantly be 
consulted in administering such an act; but it would seem 
that the latter, though it may retain some residuary value as 
providing convenient machinery for public mediation, must 
lose its distinctive character and its interest as experimental 
legislation unless, some way is discovered to secure the ob- 
servance of the clauses deferring strikes and lockouts until 
after an investigation has been held. Unless these clauses 
are enforced, the law becomes an ordinary conciliation act, 
burdened by the discredit of its unenforced provisions. — 
Victor S. Clark. Bulletin U. S. Bureau of Labor. 20: i9-2a 
January, 1910. 

The Canadian statute, does not proceed upon the theory 
that the Government will adjudicate the merits of the dis- 
pute or assume any responsibility for the adjudication of the 
dispute. The Canadian statute proceeds upon the theory 
that if all the facts are gathered together by a tribunal com- 
petent for that purpose, and the facts are published, then 
public opinion will correct the evil which may grow from a 
strike. 

Sometimes that is true; sometimes it is not true. I only 
suggest that there have been more strikes upon the railways 
in Canada, notwithstanding the statute than there have been 
in the United States in the same length of time. 

In the former hearings, when the committee was survey- 
ing the whole field, the representatives of labor were particu- 
larly critical of the Canadian statute. They have represented 
to the committee many times that the efforts of the Canadian 
government to suppress strikes through the investigating 
committee, and the publication of its reports, had been a 
total failure; and I rather accept their judgment with respect 
to that, in view of the instances which they furnish us of the 
number of strikes which had occurred under the statute. — 
Senator A. B. Cummins. Congressional Record, December 18, 
1919. 



INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES 303 

ILLEGAL STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS AND PROSECUTIONS 1 

(In Canada in industries within the scope of the Industrial Disputes 
Investigation Act.) 

Total strikes Legal strikes Illegal strikes 

Year and lockouts and lockouts and lockouts Prosecutions 

1907 41 2 39 9 

1908 19 I 18 4 

1909 19 3 16 I 

1910 14 4 10 o 

1911 25 I 24 5 

1912 32 2 30 

1913 21 2 19 3 

1914 6 1 5 o 

1915 II 1 10 1 

1916 34 1 33 o 

Total.... 222 18 204 23 

* Bulletin 233, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, p. 121:132-4. 

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 1 

(In Canada in industries within the scope of the Industrial Dispute 
Investigation Act.) 

Strikes and Establish- Employees 

Year lockouts ments affected affected Days lost 

1907 41 105+ 19,468 261,415+ 

1908 19 19 12,754 446,706+ 

1909 19 29 10,717 725.448 

J910 14 17 4,599+ 458,204 

1911 25 135 14,806 1,684,573 

1912 32 59 11,152 179.629 

1913 21 27 4.183 736,019 

1914 6 6 1,382 173,737 

1915 II 20 5,598 38,548 

1916 34 78 15.949 134.368 

Total.... 222 495+ 100,608+ 4,838,647+ 

1 Bulletin 233, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, p. 24. 



' ■^¥97- 



